Very well put, with the added point (important to me, at least) that the ‘live performance level’ for steam sounds ought to be proportional to actual relative loudness (associated with dynamic range) as well as overall proportional to viewing distance. I get auditory fatigue just from watching videos where the bell or even just some of its partials are too loud and the whistle is compressed down into the frequency response and dynamic range of the tin(n)y little amplifier and speaker.
Clean sound is its own reward, too: I’m badly sensitive to clipping, particularly above comfortable listening level.
Oddly enough, I like train videos with a soundtrack, and I love train videos with sound even when it’s only well-chosen clips of the wrong stuff for prototype… but I can’t stand music and sounds together.
Recently I have come into possession of older Athearn and Atlas locomotives. I have converted them to DCC, some with sounds, others without. There are good sound decoders that are not too expensive, and if you are not picky about the engine sound, they are great. For me, the locomotive cost was very low, so conversion cost was as well as I have some nice engines
Originally I had thought of going “dual mode” DC and DCC on the same layout. My locomotive fleet is not very large (28) with less than 1/2 DCC. However, after seeing how much trouble a friend of mine has been experiencing with his dual mode layout, I decided to go DCC only.
I have a mix of LL Proto 2000, Atlas, Athearn RTR, Athearn Geneisis units and am installing DCC-sound in the DC units, one by one.
Sound is a must-have for me. I was fortunate in having seen prototype 1st and 2nd generation units in action up close. To me, the replicated sounds offered by LOKSound and TCS provide an enjoyable “memory lane” trip to the days when GE U-Boats and EMD SD40-2’s ruled the Class 1 main lines.
Add to that, the “QUALITY” of sound has greatly improved in just the past 5 years. The “sugar cube” speaker enclosures and the very crisp and clean sounds provided by the latest sound decoders are impressive. We’ve come a long way from the days when Soundtraxx’s DSD-150 decoder was on top of the sound food chain.
Perhaps I’m different from other modelers that enjoy sound in that I keep the volume turned down LOW, as if I were standing 500+ feet away from a prototype unit. My ear’s “icing on the cake” is to have units programmed with a slight amount of “reverb” to simulate the effect of distance.
Although on a budget, I don’t mind saving up and paying a little bit more for sound to enjoy my modeling experience.
As time permits, I’m going through many of my older sound-equipped engines all the way back to the early Broadway Ltd. GG1s and their NYC Hudsons and upgrading speakers, decoders if necessary and finally getting around to “fine-tuning” the sound levels.
Like Antonio, I recall those unique sounds and hearing them, at a LOW volume level, brings a great deal of enjoyment from the rekindled memories.
Gimmicks for some, sure, but when used and balanced realistically and not overdone, sound adds a whole new dimension for me.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL
You may find the newer DCC/sound models “amazing”, I have heard them, they still sound like my 1968 9 transistor pocket radio to my HiFi trained ears.
We were building an HO layout in the art-building attic of my high school that incorporated sound via a combination of transmission-line subwoofer (remember the Fried T-2 ‘everything but the wood’?) with a tweeter/mid that ran on a subtrack under the operating train. This was nominally ± 3dB from 18Hz to somewhere north of 22kHz with all the dynamic range you could want, driven off some vast parent-basement-donated tube amp (I actually think it was a Marantz probably worth ridiculous money today) which didn’t clip and gave all the dynamic range you could want. We were planning to do the sound effects with – admittedly much lower-fi, a bunch of little tape loops put into endless cassette shells providing the various effects with different pre-gains – good heads for the day but cheap transports as a little wow and flutter didn’t seem as important at the time. The one I did build had a pot controlling the capstan-motor speed so you could manually synchronize the endless steam exhaust recording with track speed. (The dim idea … I’m sure I got it from MR … was to be able to shift from one track to another on the width of the tape to produce ‘more effort’ when appropriate, but that never quite got implemented…)
This was just as gratifying as necessary, and I have been ‘missing’ sound all the years since and enjoy most of what a locomotive l
I’ve been DCC for nearly 20 years. I’ve converted many ‘older’ locos - but to be truly difficult, it would have to be a loco from more than 20 years ago at this point. And even then - it would be locos closer to train set qulaity than anythign I’d actually want to run, even the better locos of the 90’s had decent motors that don;t draw too much current and connect to the track pickups with wires, not through the frame. Which makes than easy to convert to DCC. As easy as a loco with a DCC plug already in it? No, but certainly not in the least bit difficult if there are already wires connecting the motor to the track pickups.
I have not gone all sound. If I did, I would be disappointed in my older locos, because sound has improved immensly since the early sound decoders. Nigth and day difference. Both in the quality of sound, and in the motor drive. It also was extremely expensive - about the same as it costs now, but I was also buying good quality motor only decoders for $12 each. Motor decoders have gotten more expensive, so I will generally add sound if I am adding DCC now. No rush, no need to go spend thousands on decoders and speakers, because I don’t need all my locos ready to go tomorrow. I can spread out the installs with layout construction, plus I have a decent fleet with at least DCC, plus some sound, to get started at this point.
I have no interest in dual mode. In fact, I disable it in all my decoders. Running sound decoders on DC STILL is a less than ideal experience, and it’s NEVER going to be fixed, it’s a matter of needing power to runt he electronics for the sound so the loco can properly make sounds without moving. Note that a system like the MRC Tech 6 runs DCC/sound locos in DCC mode - that is NOT dual mode. If you can acces all the functions - it’s in DCC mode. What few tirggerable sounds there are on a dual mode sound loco when operating on DC are triggered by rapid flipping of the direction switch, ala old Lio
Antonia45 has hit the nail on the head. My prior layout that of course did not have dcc of sound, just dc.
Even though I had fun for years running with dc and no sound it is nothing like dcc and sound when it comes to our train today.
All my locomotives today are dcc and sound and I never run just dc today. Those that could not be converted were sold off. Although I love sound it has to be done in reason, keep the volume as not to be annoying.
I have seen some layouts where they just blow the horns and whistles continually when running, now that is annoying!!
I thought sound would be more important to me than it turned out to be.
When I got back into the model trains, the first engine I acquired was a Walthers Proto SD9 with dcc/sound.
There’s nothing wrong with the sound generation, very clear. But I found that when running it, the engine sounds grew boring after not all that long. Horn and bell… they’re ok. But the sound of the diesel engine itself doesn’t quite “match up” with the way it would sound running a big one (did that for 32 years). I realize that’s not easy to duplicate in a model.
I found that I “lost nothing” by turning the sound off with the mute button, and just listening to the wheels on the rails along with the “natural” sounds of the motor and gears.
Since then… all my other engine purchases have been either dc (which I put decoders into) or a few with dcc (but not sound) already installed. I find you get used to the individual sounds each particular loco makes, no two are quite alike.
So for me, it’s dcc without the sound, thank you very much.
Ouch! That’s what I get for sloppy keyboarding. [:-^] The answer is yes, to both.
If I had typed tinniTUS, none of this would have mattered.
While I’m here again, I learned very early that sound does not scale. I learned that an idling diesel and a chuffing steamer don’t play well together with my ears. I also loved the feature with my early QSI’s where I could customize the mute function F8. Anyway, I routinely reduce my Master Volume CV setting to about 40%, occasionally a little higher, depending on the particular decoder and speaker. This way, only one or two active locomotives compete for my auditory complex’s attention.
If there is anyone new reading, or someone who has been averse to fiddling with more than a couple of the basic CV’s, you really should take the time to play with Master Volume settings. I think you’ll come to appreciate your HO sound experience a quite a bit more. Or, don’t forget the repeated taps of F8 reduces the volume on some decoders.
Note that he means digitally-processed telephone audio, not POTS.
I first began to realize the difference when the Ericsson people started to push the “Utilize the Silence” scam in the 1990s. As they compressed the audio packet payload, but synthetically kept the latency, I began to realize I couldn’t really hear the decoded audio correctly – it wasn’t the ear, it was something in background attention in perception.
At some point between the iPhone 3gs and the iPhone 5s, something in the way they changed a codec made it impossible to understand my daughter speaking on a phone if there’s any ambient background noise either where she is or where I am. This corresponded with the completely unintelligible breakup of any background music playing on the radio as transmitted over the phone.
All this time I’ve been thinking that handsfree eliminates the foreground concentration or haptics that make texting, or manual dialing and function selection, such a disaster. This is making me understand where some of the potential trouble even in handsfree might be.
Sheldon, your post reminded me that I’m not totally averse to sound as far as model railroads are concerned.
Every year (although not this year) we have a local layout tour in November, which usually features between 25 to 30 layouts. As a rough estimate, I’d guess that it covers about 50 miles around the western tip of Lake Ontario, centered in Hamilton, and extending perhaps 15 miles outward into the area around the city.
The layouts covered range from N scale to O, and occasionally G scale too. Many are extremely well-done, but even the plywood Pacifics can be interesting, and many are DCC with sound.
In some cases, it’s tolerable for short periods, but it can interfere with conversations with the layouts’ owners.
One layout, only a couple miles from my home, represents a railroad set in the '40s. The scenery and structures are immaculate, the trains and operations very well executed.
The sound, though, is perfect…not chuffing steam and whistles blowing all over the place, but rather big band music, played at a level where it’s simply in the background…it doesn’t at all impinge on a conversation, but sets the mood and tone of the railroad just perfectly.
If I can get my stereo functioning again, I’d be very likely to feature the same music on my late '30s-era layout.
There is, of course, a lot of other music I like, but most of it is meant to be played LOUD, and is not really appropriate to model railroading (or when anyone else might be here).
Not even if I told you I have DC with wireless throttles, no block toggles, can run four trains at the same time on the mainline, and have automatic train control to prevent collisions?
Not to mention one button route control of turnouts, signaling and CTC, or optional walk around tower control?
And, there is even more…constant lighting that comes on before the train moves, and DCC like slow speed motor control using the same PWM control DCC decoders use.
It’s ok, I understand, I’m sure you are happy with DCC.
Thank you for your response GMPullman. Yes, recreating those railfanning memories of scenes (that we probably took for granted) can be enjoyable!
Interesting responses on this thread.
Just speaking for myself (and I know modelers with similar sentiments), even with 10 sound equipped locomotives…if the sound is turned down to very low levels then it becomes complementary not annoying.
My perspective is that of a railfan / modeler that lived about 1 mile of a mainline that ran SCL and Amtrak trains. Cool factor is that I could hear the horns echoing at a distance. Only during times when street traffic was down (Sundays and some holidays) could I faintly hear the echoing sounds of U18B’s prime movers chugging or the turbo whines of SDP40fs. For me, very enjoyable memories.
So again, for me, sound turned down to a very low level (with some reverb) to convey distance is an enjoyabe flavor of the hobby. I can’t imagine running trains without sound now any more than I could accept silver painted HO Budd and PS passenger cars. Not my intent to sound snobby, but I confess to being spoiled by sound.
When I look at YouTube vids now with trains running, it seems strange to not hear the locomotives making any onboard sound. But these are just my views in a forum conversation.
The genie was let out of the bottle and, she’s not going back in.
I did a lot of “railfanning” in the late '60s and early 1970s. I had a little Sony cassette recorder and I made tapes of passing trains and other sounds related to railroading.
I sure recall hearing the Broadway roar into Canton, Ohio late at night. Usually with four E7 and E8s on the head end. You could hear the horns from miles away as the train approached. Canton was at a low spot and when the train came in he was probably still doing 25 or 30 and a heavy application brought the train to a stop right away. Usually the twin-unit diners were blocking the crossing when the train came to a stop.
While passengers were getting on or off I would then quickly walk to the head end, past all four Es and record him heading east toward Pittsburgh. Oh, what a memory. He would wind up those engines and climb out of town, as the last car passed by, steam hissing from the end steam connector, it became quiet ahain but you could still hear those 567s splitting the night.
I still listen to those recordings. No I didn’t have top-notch equipment and five-hundred dollar mikes. It still sends chills down my spine to hear it again today.
I can recreate memories like this, and dozens more, with the excellent sound files and speakers provided in many of my HO engines. NO you don’t want sound rattling the plastic shells. Most decoders I have the sound levels reduced to around 30-40% or so.
One sound I sure miss is hearing the peanut whistle of the conductor’s communicating whistle. You could easily hear it while standing within a hundred feet of the cab. Two long tweets, two quick honks of the horn and he was off. It would be nice if one of the decoder manufacturers would have this sound available, even if buried way down the function list.
A while back I picked up a pair of the Kato Amtrak AMD-103s and