I am getting back into HO after a ten year break and the sound stuff has blown me away. I have some questions? Obviously the way to go would be to buy locos with sound installed. But I model one of those obscure RR’s no one seems to, the MKT. How difficult is it to put sound in say the Genesis F units?
It seems the booster on the ABA sets are powered. Years ago you had lots of space in the unpowered booster to do these things. Who makes the better sounding units or is this to subjective?
Thanks for your help.SteveB
At the present time, you have 3 choices – a Model Rectifier sound decoder which, in my opinion, is just money thrown away; a SoundTraxx decoder, which is better than MRC; or a newer kid on the block from Germany called the Lok-Sound.
Tony’s Train Exchange (http://www.tonystrains.com) is a Lok-Sound source, and has a link to the company’s Web site where you can download their Programming software and sound files to try it out.
Since Lok-Sound is just entering the U.S. market, most of their available sounds are of European trains, but they are slowly adding U.S. engines. You can even upload your own sounds into a Lok-Sound decoder.
SoundTraxx (Throttle Up!) is in the development phase (has been for 2 years now) of a new decoder dubbed the “Tsunami” which is supposed to be equivalent to the Quantum Sound if they ever get it onto the market. Tony’s has information about SoundTraxx and a link to their site, too.
QSI, the sound system used by Broadway Limited and Lionel, is trying to set up a distribution network to sell their sound systems as an after-market product. Up until now, the only way you can get QSI sound is to purchase a locomotive with it already installed, because it takes up a lot of room and special frames have to be designed for diesel engines. On a steamer, the sound goes into the tender.
If you think that is the way to go, just buy a sound unit of any road that has the same trucks and color as you want and swap the shell for an MKT painted one. Put the other shell onto the original frame of the MKT and sell it.
A powered unit? It is going to be tight, and adding speaker wires to all those headlight wires it is going to be messy.
You could un-power them, or buy the unpowered units (as far as I know the only unpowered Genesis are the second set (#47B #47C) made for the the Walthers AT&SF SuperChief set. I bought a bunch of them just to have the unpowered chassis, purposely for sound installations.
Yes it is going to be subjective. Personally I think the Phoenix http://www.phoenixsound.com/are the best. Some people think they are only for large scale but the units fit fine inside an unpowered F unit. In the bigger picture, they have the only 16 bit sound unit on the market at the moment. At least three others are supposedly coming out with 16 bit sound soon. Many people like the QSI, but I think that is because of the volume. People’s ears are often decieved to take loudness for quality. This is why salesmen in stereo stores always turn up the volume of a unit they are trying to sell you, it seems to sound “better”.
With the current state of the art, the speaker installation is going to make a lot more difference in the quality of the sound than the sound processor. It is just har
actually there are 2 (that i know of) reasons that salesmen turn up the volume when trying to sell you sound equipment
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the louder the sound , the more power that is being put out by the amplifier . a low cost amplifier or speaker system will start to produce audible distortion at higher levels . so playing it loud proves it’s a good unit
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many types of music have very quiet passages (symphonic orchestras , or pink floyd’s dark side of the moon for example ) that often don’t get heard at low to normal listening levels ,playing it loud brings these out
so sometimes louder does sound better
With a little reading and asking I was able to install a Soundtrax module with a 1 1/2 inch oval speaker in an HO GP-9. It sounds awesome the only problem I have found with soundtrax is it burps and krackles over every speck of dirt or oxidation on the track. It is very sensitive to track cleanlieness to the point I want to throw it against the wall sometimes. I think when Digitrax comes out with thier sound units I may replace the soundtrax. The idea of swapping shells from Texas Z would be your simpliest bet particularly if you dont want to go in and start chopping and cutting on your loco.
Terry