I just ordered a PCM T1 which should arrive tommorow.I bought the undecorated w/o sound and had TTX install a Tsunami.Now I may be having second thoughts…The Tsunami in my Berkshire is fantastic but I haven’t heard the ESU sound.One reason that I went with the tsunami is that I’m starting to get a little confused between the different systems when I operate with sound
Regular Soundtraxx,QSI,Tsunami and whichever Trix uses in thier HO Mikado.What does your ESU sound like? Should I have stayed with the original sound unit instead of going with the Tsunami?
I’d say the Tsunami will be superior in sound for sure - however I wonder if they have a correct whistle sound. Might not matter if you are going with a Rambles version of AFT or Chessie Steam Special, they ran passenger whistles anyway. I’m quite happy with the ESU sound in my T-1, but the Tsunami is likely going to be better. The Trix uses an older Loksound unit which only had fixed whistle blasts, not user controlled.
Until they come out with a diesel Tsunami, the Loksound is probably the best option for diesels.
–Randy
You made a wise choice. Read on please.
The Loksound was reviewed in MR this month and if you like to run trains, you will be happy to use the Tsunami and not the Loksound. Once you hit the Loksound whistle function, it is a timed single long blow. No short whistle is available according to the review.
Quote from MR:: “This isn’t the kind of controllable sound effect that most hobbyists expect.” I have to agree and hope they start correcting the features of their product since they have some models coming that I might want. .
That means you cannot blow the whistle three shorts for backing up or two longs and a short and a long for a grade crossing. I am only reading the review, but Tony’s Trains also reviewed it and you can read that one also. I purchased the Trix Big Boy with Loksound and was so upset, I sold it and retained my early Trix without sound so the Tsunami could be installed.
In the early version of Loksound, the bell had to turn off before the whistle would blow and then the whistle sequence was seven types of without any railroad standard signals included in the seven sequence. The chuffs were representative of a 2 cylinder engine on the
I’m not much of an HO scale modeler, and have never bought a Trix or any ESU equipped locomotive from the factory so I have no idea what version of the Loksound decoder they are using. It doesn’t sound like the current version, which is strange to say the least. With that said…
I do have vast experience with both the Tsunami and Loksound v3.5 decoders in my On30 equipment. While there is no doubt from the factory the Tsunami is the better sound decoder, there is so much more you can do with the Loksound decoder in terms of the sounds (using the programmer of course) that I have completely gone with the ESU products in all of my On30 power. The motor and lighting control in the Loksound is also heads and shoulders better than the Tsunami, and again much of this is owed to the vast amount of setup that can be done.
My opinion at this point is that the Tsunami is a great out of the box solution, but lacks the configurability and superior motor control of the Loksound. Also keep in mind the Tsunami still uses an 8 ohm speaker which makes it run hot compared with the Loksound, and the Tsunami is also much larger in dimension. These two issues alone could pose installation problems not present with the Loksound. Also, ESU just realeased the Micro which is the smallest sound decoder on the market right now, but still has all the features of the standard v3.5 (slightly less output is the major difference). I have installed the Micro in locomotives (N scale mostly) where a standard sound decoder just doesn’t fit and they work great!
It’s really too bad Loksound insists on selling older products to the OEM market. The v3.5 decoder not only has allows for complete whistle control, but also supports the analog playable whistle featrure (sort of anyway). It is without a doubt the finest sound decoder on the market when you take everything into consideration in my opinion, and should be on any modelers list of products to try… [:D]
Jeff
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QUOTE: Originally posted by bangert1
You made a wise choice. Read on please.
The Loksound was reviewed in MR this month and if you like to run trains, you will be happy to use the Tsunami and not the Loksound. Once you hit the Loksound whistle function, it is a timed single long blow. No short whistle is available according to the review.
Quote from MR:: “This isn’t the kind of controllable sound effect that most hobbyists expect.” I have to agree and hope they start correcting the features of their product since they have some models coming that I might want. .
That means you cannot blow the whistle three shorts for backing up or two longs and a short and a long for a grade crossing. I am only reading the review, but Tony’s Trains also reviewed it and you can read that one also. I purchased the Trix Big Boy with Loksound and was so upset, I sold it and retained my early Trix without sound so the Tsunami could be installed.
In the early version of Loksound, the bell had to turn off before the whistle would blow and then the whistle sequence was seven types of without any railroad standard signals included in the seven sequence.
Randy,
I kind of wondered why the T1 would have an older decoder!?! Thanks for clearing that up. I also agree with your view on the playable whistle function. It seems kind of half baked and I haven’t really used it much yet, but it’s nice that the feature is supported to some extent.
Jeff
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I strongly disagree with Andy’s finding, I can blow the whistle on my T-1 as long or as short as I want. I’m not sure what the deal is with why Andy had problems blowing short toots. The Loksound 3.5 used in the PCM models is not anything like the old Loksound unit used in the Trix Big Boy - the whistle and bell and chuffs all sound at the same time, it’s not limited to producing just 2 sounds at a time. It does still use 100 ohm speakers, but that keeps the current draw and physical size of the amplifier small - seeing as how they now have one small enough to fit in N scale… The higher ohm speaker means lower current flow through the amplifier for the same loudness.
And Jeff, the T-1 has the Loksound 3.5 - complete with the semi-playable whistle (it seems to only control volume). The instructions manual makes no mention of it, but since I had enabled the option on my DT400 I found it quite by accident. The Tsunami has a true playable whistle - maybe that will be Loksound 4.0.
–Randy
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Randy
That is interesting about Andy’s report. His Loksound unit might not have been set up correctly and you should email MR about the review. It left me with a bad image that might not be accurate. I do not own the T1 as the early Loksound was disappointing on the Big Boy for sure and I got rid of it. Maybe we will find out he tested a pre release without the latest software??
It is good to hear some improvements have been made since I do want to get the Y6b when it comes out, but was going to get it without sound. I will keep checking to find out if they get it better. The speakers are not such a big deal as they should last.
Thanks again for the update. I did cancel the new Big Boy from PCM, but that could change again if they really solve the problems.
The Tsunami is really quite remarkable and with rod clank and every thing I
I don’t doubt the Tsunami is superior in pretty much every way. 16 bit sound (the other are all 8 bit) plus more channels in the mixer than any other decoder. Supposedly has very good back-emf motor drive too. The Loksound definitely has an AWESOME drive, my T-1 really creeps. Just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating, I went downt ot he layotu tonight and got the tender out (you can do everything but the chuff with the tender alone - it needs the back-emf from the motor for speed sensing) and started blowing all sorts of whistle signals. There may be an absolute minimum toot but it’s plenty short enough to blow very realistic crossing signals. It’s kind of hard to tell, if you blip F2 reall fast it often makes no noise, like it misses the command - QSI deoders are the same way, could be that it never gets sent, or not long enough. I’d have to hook up my computer and fire up JMRI to watch the Loconet, but I suspect if you blip the button REALLY fast it sends and F2 ON and an F2 OFF immediately back to back, one packet ofter the other, and the decoder doesn;t have time to react to the on before it sees the off. But this is in no way like the fixed whistles blasts on the older Loksound decoders or on the MRC ones - MR used to have a video posted on the Trix Big Boy and the Athearn Challenger and you could hear how there were only fixed long and fixed short whistle blasts. The T-1 is definitely controllable.
–Randy