Sound - DCC vs. DC

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

The topic of this thread is primarily addressed to our DC brethren.

There is a recent thread on the forum dealing with the issue of locomotives with and without sound.

It got me to thinking that one of the advantages of DCC is the ability to generate sound in individual locomotives.

That got me to wondering about the possibility of sound on a DC layout.

Does it work, and how does it work? Since DC powers the rails, not the individual locomtives, how do you control sound to a single locomotive.

What is the overall experience with sound on a DC layout?

Rich

2

Rich,

If you take your typical DCC dual mode decoder sound loco and put it on a DC layout, it works like this - POORLY. Here is what happens:

First no sound until you move the throttle, then the loco does not move until over half throttle, then speed control is very poor and difficult to control, then when you stop the sound stops.

Bells and whistles can be controlled by the direction switch but it is very tricky.

Or you can buy one of those little black box sound controllers, but all they are is a DCC output on address #3.

Here is the best part, if you use a more advanced DC throttle like I do, the dual mode decoder, sound or not, will often not even run the train or work correctly. Some brands of decoders just sit and hum on my Aristo Craft Train Engineer DC system because it uses pulse width modulation and it drives the decoder crazy.

Anyone serious about DC removes all DCC decoders from their locos. This nonsense of “dual mode” is just that, most of them only work on the most basic power packs, and generally provide much worse motor control than the loco would have without the decoder even using the most basic train set power pack.

DCC/dual mode decoder sound run on DC simply does not really work - except for maybe a display where the train just runs continously.

I checked all this out YEARS ago, but since I don’t want onboard sound, none of this is an issue for me.

Still trying to “sell” onboard sound to the other half? - WHY? When I get my under layout sound built, I will have you over, and you can hear that and the stereo speakers I designed and built - then you will know what real sound is.

Sheldon

3

Sheldon, thanks for that reply. I had you in mind when I posted this thread.

I wonder if anyone has a satisfying experience with sound on a DC layout.

I am intrigued with your plan to install a high quality sound system on your layout. I thought about that on my old American Flyer layout but never did do it.

I look forward to the invite to your sound equipped layout when it is built.

Rich

4

I think Rich, like me is simply curious as to how sound works in the DC environment. Something else I wonder about, having never experienced a layout with under the layout sound…, does the sound follow the locomotive/train around, or is it confined to certain speakers or all of them at one time?

Jarrell

[quote user=“ATLANTIC CENTRAL”]

Rich,

If you take your typical DCC dual mode decoder sound loco and put it on a DC layout, it works like this - POORLY. Here is what happens:

First no sound until you move the throttle, then the loco does not move until over half throttle, then speed control is very poor and difficult to control, then when you stop the sound stops.

Bells and whistles can be controlled by the direction switch but it is very tricky.

Or you can buy one of those little black box sound controllers, but all they are is a DCC output on address #3.

Here is the best part, if you use a more advanced DC throttle like I do, the dual mode decoder, sound or not, will often not even run the train or work correctly. Some brands of decoders just sit and hum on my Aristo Craft Train Engineer DC system because it uses pulse width modulation and it drives the decoder crazy.

Anyone serious about DC removes all DCC decoders from their locos. This nonsense of “dual mode” is just that, most of them only work on the most basic power packs, and generally provide much worse motor control than the loco would have without the decoder even using the most basic train set power pack.

DCC/dual mode decoder sound run on DC simply does not really work - except for maybe a display where the train just runs continously.

I checked all this out YEARS ago, but since I don’t want onboard sound, none of this is an issue for me.

Still trying to “sell” onboard sound to the other half? - WHY? When I get my under layout sound built, I will have you over, and you can hear that and the stere

5

My D.C.layout with sound equipped locos make me happy!!![swg]

6

Exactly

7

Sounds on DC, well, it simply cannot work unless EVERY loco has sound. No non-sound loco will be abel tor run with a sound loco. Sheldon mainly covered it. Unless you want the loco flying around the layout at half throttle or better before the sound even turns on, you have that dead area on the throttle to get power to the electronics. There’s simply no way around that. No amount of configuration is going to change this.

If you want sound, you want DCC. Plain and simple. If you think the sound is neat on DC, try it on DCC. 1000% improvement in the operation.

–Randy

8

I had a friend (he’s deceased now), that had DC with sound under the layout. It was some high end US system from the 80’s i think. The biggest problem was that the sound was so loud and bass filled that after a while it got very tiresome to hear it… To me it doesn’t sound right if the loco sounds like it’s right by my side when it’s; A: in HO scale, wich is a small scale… AND B: 10 feet away! Wich in real life means it would be 870 feet away… No, the best sound system I’ve seen so far must’ve been the Surroundtraxx, but that still demands DCC…

9

Rich,

I have to answer this… Although I agree that dcc and sound locos perform better on dcc THEY will work and perform on dc. There is in the manual instructions on how to do this. You have to pay attention to the sounds, air pumps etc. to know when to change controls for differant fuctions. I have 6 Bli’s on my layout with sound and they work to my satisfaction. And you can stop the engine squealing brakes and all and have the engine go to idle and sit there for as long as you want… My layout is controlled by 3 mrc 20s hand held tethered controls and they work fine for me, you just need to know how to do it, takes some time. You can’t run dc and dcc on the same track But on a 65ft double main line you can…

Cheers Frank

10

We started with sound on a DC layout using loco sounds off of a CD through a stereo system and speakers under the layout–great bass and feel, but not tied to loco movement obviously.

Then we tried sound locos on a DC layout and had the obvious issues discussed earlier. We explored tying the on board sound module with the stereo system, but that was getting to be more than we wanted vs a simple DCC system. We had a sound chip tied to the DC controller and pre amp/stereo, so we had sound and loco movement somewhat tied together. This would work for regular DC locos. The sound quality was good, but still had the sound control issues mentioned by others here.

Ultimately we went with DCC because of the operational ease, modularity, expansion possibilities, ease of establishing various controls, ease of teaching guest operators, etc. But if we want the real bass sound of a large speaker we MU the on board system with the under the table system.

Could go on and on due to the many years of trying different things, but hopefully you get the general ideas.

Richard

11

Rich,

There are lots of different approaches to layout based sound, and they need to be designed for the specific room and layout configuration, and the layout operating scheme.

I have not decided exactly what I am going to do, but I have strong background in Hi Fi and will likely experiment with several ideas.

To answer some general questions, it is possible, and relatively easy to give it at least some sense of moving with the train. Especially when signaling and detection are already in place. The sound system can know which block the train is in just like the dispatcher knows that on his CTC panel. So even with DC, it is not hard to get effects similar ot the surroundtraxx system.

To be honest, my main interest in layout based sound is to add bells, horns and whistles in approperate areas, yards, grade crossings, etc.

Another approach to layout based sound that works on busy layouts in just to have low volume, high tone quality railroad background sounds. Such sound can be “regionalized” around the layout for different effects.

To elebarate some on what I said earlier, with careful use and the right throttle, some DCC dual mode sound decoders do work OK on DC.

But as Randy pointed out, you cannot MU a DCC/sound loco with a non sound DC loco.

And if you make special throttle adjustments on some types of throttles to make the sound locos work well, the regular DC locos will not work so well.

The big probl

12

Let’s look at it this way.

Simply put DCC is no longer needed for sound on a DC layout.

How is this possible?

MRC has a wonderful little DC power pack called the Tech 6 it can even set CVs and as walk around capabilities!

http://www.modelrec.com/search/product-view.asp?ID=8266

And for those that are interested read this:

http://www.modelrectifier.com/resources/trainSound/Tech6%20addendum.pdf

I have one and I like it far better then my old trusty Tech II 1400 or my CM20.

13

But here is the thing, with that product, or serval others on the market, when switched over to the “sound decoder” mode, you really are using DCC, but it is only set up for one loco at a time on the default address.

And, I will say that such systems are great for small simple layouts if you want sound.

Sheldon

14

Rich:

Glad you brought the topic up, the other post seemed to have morphed into a DCC vs DC issue rather than sound and non-sound.

Here’s my solution on my relatively large DC layout. The MaxxTraxx. Unfortunately, it is no longer produced, but for me it has proven to be a viable alternative to on-board sound in individual locomotives. It consists of a controller and (on my layout at least) four under-table speakers distributed fairly evenly around under the layout. Since I’m about 98% steam, I have what is called the “Heritage Steam” control unit that features just about every sound that can be utilized by a DCC CV unit (I think I’ve got that right). Bells, whistles, pumps, regular or articulated chuffing, idling, generators coming on–the works. It’s all controlled by a combination of 3 buttons. Program in and lock the sounds you want, then as the train travels over the layout, I can press one code for ‘doppler’ effect which gives the impression that the sound is actually following the train.

I’ve got it hooked up to 4 compact Radio Shack TV speakers, and the volume is turned down low enough to give the ‘atmosphere’ of steam (I can turn it up to BLAST when the neighborhood kids come over to watch Tom run the trains, LOL!).

So that’s my answer to the DC sound question. I do have a couple of BLI dual-mode steamers that I run occasionally (not in tandem with my usual DC locos, obviously), and I have been able to program the starting voltage down considerably with them. One, an AC-5 cab forward has been programmed down to about 4 volts starting, and using the direction switch on my Controlmaster 20, I can get the basic sounds (bell, whistle, etc) enough to satisfy me.

This works fine for me, as I’m not much of a multiple train runner (I operate on ‘real time’, and modeling a trans-Sierra mainline, means only about one train per hour anyway), and when I want to run two trai

15

My few experiences with dual mode DCC sound-equipped locos on my layout are similar to those of Sheldon. I never tried them with my PWM throttle, but I’m not much interested in sound anyway. Even DCC-ready locos perform better on DC when the circuitry is removed or by-passed.
I have not heard steam sound which was convincing and most of it, for me, is simply tiresome to hear for more than 30 seconds. [(-D] Some diesel sounds seem realistic, but they’re equally annoying to me other than at idle or low-speed operation. Definitely not something I’d want even if I were using DCC.

As for the advantages of DCC, in my opinion the one that offers the most realism but is the least used is the ability to control each locomotive separately within a train. While I agree that it’s perfectly acceptable to “consist” diesels, any train with more than one steam locomotive should have an operator for each, and likewise if the train has pushers, diesel or steam. Of course, while that option seems attractive to me, I’d then have to have additional operators, a not-so-interesting option. [swg]
I’ve also entertained thoughts of building a DCC-equipped wreck crane, with all of the prototype’s operational functions (well, maybe not the smoke). It would probably have to be in O scale to accommodate the multiple motors/decoders and I doubt that a standard DCC throttle would be sufficient to operate it prototypically - good thing it’s only a thought. [(-D]

Wayne

16

And, I will say that such systems are great for small simple layouts if you want sound.

Sheldon

Absolutely…Its not meant to replace DCC for multi train operation but,enhance sound and utilize CV setting for DC users.

What I like you can add a throttle for walk around control which is a real plus on industrial switching layouts that uses ground throws and manual uncoupling.

To be honest I got my Tech 6 for walk around and to set several CVs on my duel mode DCC locomotives.

17

I suspect the quality of DC on board sound is the same as DCC on board sound, so there is not much motivation at this point. To operate my trains(s) properly, I would have to upgrade my power system to wireless DCC.

No stationary or tethered throttles for me.

Modeling a one train prototype makes the system that operates the train irrelevant, so DCC conversion would be strictly for sound.

And I may do this at some point, since the conversion is already funded, sort of. I have many more locomotives than I need and selling them on the secondary market will supply me with enough funds to buy several fully-loaded locomotives and convert the ones I want to keep. I have a growing desire to purge my stock of the locomotives I don’t use much anyway. And since my layout is wired for one train DC operation or several locomotive DCC operation, soldered track with a bus line and feeders every 10 feet, the conversion is a matter of time rather than cost, and any desire to have sound.

Its good to read that sound can work with DC (with investment in specific equipment). It’s highly likely the two won’t meet on my layout.

18

Sheldon,

I notice no one proposes piping sound into a headset which would follow you as you move along with the train, is this not practical?

Ernie C

19

I’m sure it’s practical, but I don’t want to wear headphones, or ear buds, or what ever. I don’t listen to music that way, I 'm surely not going to run trains that way.

I never owned a Walkman, don’t own an Ipod, don’t listen music through computer speakers, keep the speakers on my computer turned off, etc.

But that’s just me.

Sheldon

20

Tom, I know what you mean! I’m starting to think of a 50 year old as a KID!! You and I should have been born rich as all get out instead of so devastatingly good looking. [:D]

Jarrell

[quote user=“twhite”]

Rich:

Glad you brought the topic up, the other post seemed to have morphed into a DCC vs DC issue rather than sound and non-sound.

Here’s my solution on my relatively large DC layout. The MaxxTraxx. Unfortunately, it is no longer produced, but for me it has proven to be a viable alternative to on-board sound in individual locomotives. It consists of a controller and (on my layout at least) four under-table speakers distributed fairly evenly around under the layout. Since I’m about 98% steam, I have what is called the “Heritage Steam” control unit that features just about every sound that can be utilized by a DCC CV unit (I think I’ve got that right). Bells, whistles, pumps, regular or articulated chuffing, idling, generators coming on–the works. It’s all controlled by a combination of 3 buttons. Program in and lock the sounds you want, then as the train travels over the layout, I can press one code for ‘doppler’ effect which gives the impression that the sound is actually following the train.

I’ve got it hooked up to 4 compact Radio Shack TV speakers, and the volume is turned down low enough to give the ‘atmosphere’ of steam (I can turn it up to BLAST when the neighborhood kids come over to watch Tom run the trains, LOL!).

So that’s my answer to the DC sound question. I do have a couple of BLI dual-mode steamers that I run occasionally (not in tandem with my usual DC locos, obviously), and I have been able to program the starting voltage down considerably with them. One, an AC-5 cab forward has been programmed down to about 4 volts starting, and using the direction switch on my Controlmaster 20, I can get the basic sounds (bell, wh