I am working on an amplifier that would boost the sounds of the horns on these LOKsound/Soundtraxx decodrs. Although the diesel rumble is quite lound enough, the horns lack of volume. So, that is the reason for my Crazy endevor.
While I am liberty to wasting hundreds of dollars, are ther any others interested?
Of course, the amplifier would raise the volume of all functions, and you would need to adjust the rumble sounds. And, the modules, if they work, would be solder in only- six wires.
If no one else is interested, then I will be able to pride myself in having the only ones.
Thank you.
Yes, for all of you people out there, I set the Cv’s to 255 MAX on my soundtraxx.
It wasn’t LOUD enough. Period.
I did find out that the soundtraxx, which has two amplifiers, were not used to their full potential.
I modified the gain to where I got what I want, but it involves modifications to the ic’s of the decoder.
Are you sure you really have decoder problems?
I guess it depends on which model/version of decoder, but my SoundTraxx decoders have horns/whistles that are quite loud enough, once I adjusted them, anyway. I’ve got a fairly diverse collection, from the old DSD-150s to some DSXs and LCs to the (teriffic) Tsunamis.
In some cases I had to lower the overall volume CV, then raise the horn/whistle (or bell) volume to get them to sound right to me.
I’m in HO, so I suppose if you’re in N it might be different.
The particular installation makes a huge difference – whether you have a large enough speaker (or speakers), placed and sealed properly, etc.
My first SoundTraxx Tsunami’s whistle started out pretty faint. CV adjusments helped, but not enough. I finally found a bad solder joint at the speaker! Once fixed, it was fine. Had to turn it down a bit, actually!
Pondini,
No, I am talking about HO. On both the Soundtraxx, and LOKsound decoders, the rumbles are quite loud enough, and the bells ring sharp and clear, but the horn volume is barely above the rumble noise.
A couple of months back, there were others talking about this and wondering what could be done about it.
It might be too much trouble, and it may not work the way that I am trying to do it- second attempt- but if it does work, and I can get the horns to where they are attention getting, then maybe the fruits will be worth the time and effort, not to mention money spent on failures.
There were others complaining about MRC decoders being too loud. But, when you sound the horns with their decoders, they are loud enough to scare the unwary to death; The only problem here is that the reliability of MRC is still questionable.
And it is just for fun.
I’ve only got one LokSound, and am not happy with it, mostly for other reasons, but I do have a number of SoundTraxx decoders. Which one(s) are you talking about?
Forgive me for asking the obvious question, but since you don’t mention adjusting CVs or any of the possible installation problems, can I assume that you’ve tried all that sort of thing? It’s possible that you’re “overdriving” the capacity of the decoder or your speaker(s), and turning down the “background”, then turning up the horn/whistle, then easing up the overall volume may get what you want. If you’re using a Tsunami, there’s a real good guide to this starting on page 35 of the Tsunami Steam User’s Guide at http://www.soundtraxx.com/documents/manuals/tsunamisteam_users_guide.pdf
I’m just saying, I thought I had similar problems, but adjusting CVs and, in one case, fixing an installation problem made mine seem just great, so I wonder if your problem is really in the decoders.
But of course it’s also what you expect – a post a few months ago was complaining that the sound of a newbie’s first HO sound decoder (I forget which one) wasn’t loud enough for him. After a few posts back and forth, he’d improved it, but finally admitted he wouldn’t be satisfied until it sounded like the prototype was in the next room! I’m certainly no audio expert, but I don’t think a one-inch speaker is going to do that, at least not in my lifetime.
Shut down the loud car stereos rolling by nearby then maybe I can actually hear what is going on in the engines.
The PCM T1’s Horn is just about worthless to me, I may tinker with my LokSound to see if i can break it out a bit more in volume.
By the same coin the new 2-10-2 QSI Heavy BLASTS my wife out of the house when I blow it’s whistle. HUAGH! followed by “WHAT IS THAT?” from the other end of the house. =)
Interesting, my T1’s whistle is plenty loud. You may have to adjust settings other than volume because the default multi-chime whistle (which I do not use since my T1 is an in-service unit) is playable (somewhat) with those DCC systems that support it. The Loksound version of a ‘playable’ whistle at this point just adjusts the volume. I swapped sounds around so the F2 whistle key plays the alternate whistle which is on F4 by default, that’s a somewhat reasonable Reading freight whistle.
Also, if you have or know someone with the Loksound programmer, Nick Kulp has made a replacement sound set from recording he made of the actual AFT.
–Randy