I’ve heard a few sound equipped locos and while they were entertaining I thought they sounded a little toy-like because they were missing the low ground-shaking rumble that real locomotives give out. I know the missing bass is due to the very small speakers hidden inside the locos.
That being said, I’m seriously considering adding locomotive sounds to my layout (not anytime soon, I still have to build the layout!). However, I’m in N scale so I won’t be able to wedge speakers into my locomotives. I read with interest David Popp’s article about adding sound to his N scale Naugatuck Valley RR (August 2006 issue of MR). I think this is the way to go, and it looks fairly easy. All I have to do is wire some Soundtraxx DSX decoders into the track bus and hook up a few speakers underneath the layout.
Mounting the speakers under the layout gives me the option of using large speakers. The bigger speakers can produce a lot more bass. My question is, are the Soundtraxx decoders capable of producing the bass that will make the locos sound real? I’m not looking for an earth-shaking roar, just something that will sound believable.
(sorry for the long post, I tend to ramble when I have an idea[:)]) Thanks in advance.
You would have to find a way to amplify the signal and keep it totally isolated from the track. I don’t know if anyone has done anything like this.
What would be nice is to have the signal from each unit/decoder work with track detection to vary the amplitude to multiple speakers around the layout. This way the bass would travel with each locomotive. This would be a fairly complicated system, but if you said that you would have the sound and control that we have today, 20 years ago, everyone would think you were nuts. Maybe some of the electronic wizards may have some ideas.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not being critical, but you’ll be wasting your time. I tried the same type thing with a MRC diesel sound box. I connected it to a 5.1 surround sound system with a center bass speaker. Even on very low volume, the bass was vibrating the room and I was getting knocks on the door from irate neighbors. At those low volumes, all I was getting was loud bass, no other sounds, such as horns or bells or air brakes, unless I turned the volume up, at which point the windows were shaking and cans were falling over in the kitchen cabinets and I was quickly going deaf! I decided very quickly that I could do without the bass for the center speaker. I’m still using the surround sound system but without the bass speaker. It sounds very good. As for the models not having the ground shaking bass, how much vibration do you feel and how much bass do you hear when you’re watching a train from a distance? Let’s say a distance that’s far enough that the loco appears about as big as your model? Answer: None.
Below is a note I got directly from Soundtraxx in October of 2003 concerning the Freqency Response for DSX. Only you can decide if missing the 200Hz-1000Hz sounds are OK, let alone the sub-woofer frequencies below that. I like the DSXs. In a locomotive those frequencies aren’t missed because the small speakers couldn’t reproduce them anyway. With a layout mounted speaker system that might be a different story.
"Our decoders work in the range of 1kHz to 25kHz. Somewhat on
the high side of the amp.
Larry Larsen
Customer Service"
It means that the decoder output won’t work with the amplifier. Any sound that comes through is going to be drowned in deep bass. It’s the same thing that happened to me. Also the sound that comes through beneath the bass will be shrill and reedy, not realistic at all.
It doesn’t take great big speakers! Check out the Soundtraxx website and try the different sound bytes on your computer speakers. Great sound! So go to a flea market or Radio Shack and get a couple of them. I thought of just using one under the engine shop for idling and popoffs, could be a dummy even. jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
1000hz to 25khz (25000hz) is a range from upper bass/low midrange to screeching high. It means that any sounds produced within this range are at the same volume level (more or less). Unless a cut-off filter is used, lower bass may be present but at much reduced volume levels. A tone or bass control could be used to enhance the low end.
A hifi subwoofer would be near useless as they are designed to operate in the sub-audible (hence “sub”) range of 50hz or less and are meant to be felt not heard. There wouldn’t likely be any usable signal in that range coming out of any decoder to date.
Computer speaker systems with subs use a higher cut-off of 200 to 120 hz to their subwoofers and do produce “audible” bass that might be useful with decoders.
Finally some one else is saying what I have been preaching for a number of years.
Listening to a model engine from 2 ft away is the same as listening to a real engine at 200 to 400 feet away in real life.
I have been railfanning for 20 years and I have never been able to hear engines very loud at those distances but YET the modelers HAVE TO HAVE all of the little squeeks and squaks of the real thing BUT want to hear them over 300 scale feet away.
It just doesn’t make sense to me. Just as the volume turned up all of the way.
As the old saying goes “If you can’t play good - Play Loud !”