Just saw and heard a proud owner of new sound system in a steam loco, I have heard a few systems at train shows and was not too impressed, so this new owner sent the loco by me and it was dreadful, the chuff-chuff sounded like a tin drum, and the whistle was awful, would the size of the speaker have anything to do with it? there are videos on the net showing the merits of new sound systems and they are even worse than my experience, just how close to realistic sounds can you make with a thimble size speaker? I realize we will never replicate the actual sounds of a steam loco rumbling by at 65mph, but I hope there are some better systems than I have heard. Is this as good as these newer sound systems are, or am I expecting too much?
In most cases, the limited frequency range of a 1 inch diameter speaker, which is about as large as they can be for HO scale, severely limits the low frequency response of sound decoders, and there just isn’t a good speaker on the market. The cones are too small to move an adequate amount of air at low frequency. Some steam engine tenders are large enough for two oval speakers, which improves the available sound, but they still have physical limitations. Until someone comes up with the technology that will allow a 1 inch speaker to have the sound quality of a 12 inch speaker, nothing will change.
Alot (if not ALL) depends on the actual decoder. Which decoder?
David B
I recall reading somewhere that QSI has a new “super bass” speaker. Don’t have any more information.
I agree that, unless we are going to underwrite Bose doing a research project to improve the sound dramatically, we don’t have much going for us right now. Still, I like my sounds, particularly the Tsunami and newer LokSound decoders. QSI could stand to improve their soundfiles somewhat…at least get a range of coupler crash, airpump sounds, steam hiss and air let-off, dynano sounds, and so on. They are repetitive. In fact, I was surprised when I went on to BLI’s site last night to hear their sound file for the UP 4-8-2. The whistle, to my untrained ear, is indistinguishable from that of the Pennsy K4s sample used by QSI. Does that make sense?