Went to the Worlds Greatest Hobby in Denver, CO yesterday. Show was TOTALLY packed. Some good vendors there (I bought a lot of stuff heheheheh).
Anyway, there were a few vendors there such as Atlas, Intermountain, Soundtraxx, Digitrax, Kato, etc…
I made a point to go to talk about the Tsunami that was supposed to be released a while ago. So, I put them on the spot and asked when I am going to be able to buy one of these sound decoders. They told me “Looks like it will be 6-8 weeks. We still have some BETA testing to do, but the pick and place machines are ready to go. We just want to make sure we catch all of the bugs before we ship.” The LATEST I was told they would ship would be mid summer.
So…we’ll see how things go. I for one was VERY impressed with the sound quality that was on these decoders. (One of the steam engines they had was carrying Tsunami). Simply amazing sound…
I hope they are testing and the unit will be available in a few weeks. We have heard about this unit and seen it at the last few shows and we want it!! It is a great improvement over anything on the market and like any other software release, it is a never ending process that will be updated even after the release.
The U.S. importer is a member of the Yahoo HOn3 list. Deliveries recently started and the first reports are excellent. It is also a unit that is user programmable in terms of sound, so you can easily update it as needed. The pricing is very reasonable and you don’t have to wait to get 'em.
I don’t want to put the Tsunamai down. It’s likely to be a quality product. But there are things out there already that indicate that Soundtraxx may be playing catchup, rather than actually achieving a market breakthrough, due to the lenghthy time to market for the Tsunami.
My finances are such that I probably won’t be jumping into either DCC or sound soon, but I’m paying close attention to developments.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
From everything that I saw and HEARD, Soundtraxx is going to be raising the bar, that’s for sure.
I think that this whole MTH Lawsuit probably had more to do with the late release of the Tsunami then anything (Oh yes…MTH was at the show too, had to refrain myself from going over and giving them a few ‘kind words’ heheheh)
So far as far as sound goes, I have found nothing that even comes close to compares to Soundtraxx’s decoders. QSI is good…but can’t hold a candle up to Soundtraxx. Tsunami (being 16 bit) may be raising the bar in a big way
“Sounds” impressive Samart. I’m looking forward to it.
While I am excited myself, one thing though.
A friend of mine who owns a technology company cautioned me that while the Tsunami may be a good product, beating QSI’s sound on BLI units won’t be an easy feat. He reminded me that BLI locomotives are built from “the ground up” and designed to accommodate sound which is one of the reasons why thier sound is considered exceptional by many customers.
The Tsunami, for it to sound well, would have to be correctly installed and baffled in locomotives from other manufacturers. So this won’t be as cut and dry as it appears.
I’m sure that Tony’s Trains, Litchfield Station, and Regis DCC are going to be getting a lot of installation business for the Tsunami.
