Has anyone listened to the so called Big Boy sound byte from PCM???
There is nothing about the sound that is correct for a 4000. I have cancelled my reservation for this model. The bell is like one they have in a school. Does the bell sound like a hand held bell??
What are your thoughts?? Wrong page?? I emailed PCM but have not heard back on this question.
Doesn’t sound like a schoolbell to me, definitely too deep to be a tiny little bell like that. But it only goes for a tenth of a second so it probably is mostly just the bell start/stop sound and not the actual bell ringing.
There are probably better examples of the sound on Loksound’s page, I think you can hear them if you download the free softwrae and the files.
It all sounds highly sped up, probably to make a smaller Flash file - I doubt that is the actual sound of the loco. My T-1 sounds great.
–Randy
That definately doesn’t sound like the bell on a Big Boy I saw in Colorado a couple of years ago.
That doesn’t sound like a big boy, PERIOD. It’s not even an articulated compound exhaust chuff. Sounds like a mountain class. I’d put a Challenger chip in it before that. How lame.
Big Boys WERE NOT articulated compounds they were simple articulateds. As for the sound, the whistle is a bit to high pitched for a Big Boy, but the cuff is nice and deep. I’d definantly order one if I had the money, but for I’ll be happy with the new Athearn Big Boy.
Ok, I’ll buy that. Clearly though, the chuff still isn’t right. You buy as many as you want.
Hmmm, maybe this is the reason for the non-articulated chuff: Anyone notice that whenever a model of an articulated comes out, both sets of drivers are in sync? Perhaps PCM’s persuasion on this is that if the drivers move at one time, only one extremely loud cuff is made. Maybe I’m wrong.
Still, I’m a bit suprised at PCM. Even the Athearn Challenger with the MRC decoder has an articulated chuff!
NOW you got what I’m talking about. Ok, so I used the wrong treminnology. I shouldn’t have said compound. Having two sets of cylinders though that AIN’T in time, would mean four exhaust chuffs. I didn’t catch but two. That’s why I said the Challenger sound chip would’ve been a lot closer.
Since I do not have any from the second run, you might be referring to them as having an upgraded sound module and I hope theu do. . Please let me know if this is the case as I have installed the Tsunami in one of my Genesis Challengers and the soundtraxx takes care of the problem with the MRC deco
I was curious about your comment on the Athearn Challenger having an articulated chuff. I have five of the first run and they do not chuff correctly, not even close. And the whistle is anything but a Union Pacific steamboat type of sound. The first run Genesis Challengers do not have chuffs running in and out of sync and it sounds like a regular two cylinder locomotive, except the MRC sound is poor.
Really? Curious, the one I ran sounded great. It went, chuff-chuff…chuff-chuff, sounded like an articulated to me. I agree that the whistle is no where close to an actual UP Challenger, but I thought the sound was pretty good. Not as great as QSI, but doable. Althought now it seems even QSI has been beaten by ESU’s Loksound.
So far, the only sound I’ve heard that I would say has it right is Soundtraxx.
My LHS received a PCM BigBoy today and I had the opportunity to watch and listen to it run on his test track. There is definitely a double-chuff…in the sound CV’s there is also an option to run the locomotive in “Heavy Train” mode, which will produce eight chuffs per revolution. It looks very, very impressive and sounds very good. I don’t know what the bell is supposed to actually sound like, but it sounded better in person than it did on the PCM website.
Don Z.
Sounds like they need a better representation on their web site, doesn’t it?
sounds good but the whistle isnt low enough
I have heard it and its way off, as for the bell its not even close. Big Boys Challengers and Northerns had electric bells that were turned off and on with a switch. You can hear them today on the 3985 and 844 its a very much like the constant dinging of a railroad crossing. Also if any of you have any of the Last of the Giants videos you will notice the repetitive ringing of the bells not like one being tugged on a rope. The whistle is too high pitched even my wife said it was wrong.
On a personal note I think we are wasting our time with sound…its just another reason models cost so much and I just see no reason for sound on scale models. I have two lionel trains with sound and they go around my christmas tree it sounds silly but they are toys.
When it comes right down to it, they are ALL toys.