That's It For Me....

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

The plaster cloth will stay in its package, the remaining loose wires can hang down just like they are, no buildings, no grass, no trees.

I’m done.

I spent all day yesterday pulling home runs, soldering them to rails, melting a tie here and there, weighting freight cars and cabooses while waiting for the soldering iron to heat up, and when I called it a day this morning around 0200, I thought it was all ready to bundle up the loose leads, feed them into the control panel, and solder all that up, hoping that today I could finish up all the wiring for good, but that’s not going to happen now.

I started around 5 this morning, figuring to get the sound out of the way first. The manual says “easy six wire hook-up”, and I suppose that’s true if you just use one unit, but if you want both diesel and steam, and you don’t want random noises from each going all the time, it’s a little different than what the manual says. Instead you’re looking at six wires each, two at a time to three different DPDT switches, one for accessory power, one for throttle sync, and the third to decide which signal goes to the amps.

Then you’ve got another pair of feeds coming into each switch, a pair for audio out, and two feeds from the power pack, tiny little wires, trying to solder to even tinier posts on the sub-micro miniature DPDT switches, so small I could barely see them even with my magnifying headset on.

You need at least three hands to manage all this, more would be even better. One to hold the pliers that hold the switch, one to hold the wire in place on the post, one to hold the rest of that wire and all the others out of the way, one to hold the soldering iron, and finally, one to hold the solder.

Anyway, I got it all wired up, or at least I thought I did, slid the switch barrels through the holes and wrestled with the nano-nuts for the sub microswitches to secure them to the control panel, and plugged up the pre-amp, the speakers, the main amplifier, a

2

Nothing like a good sub-woofer (unless it’s in the low-rider down the street.)

3

Wow, you had me fooled. I thought you were saying that you were baked and leaving the hobby. [:(]

Have you found the mute button that some of our members here say they use most often on their expensive sound locos? [:-,]

4

NOW I know why the dogs all leave the neighborhood every time I open my garage and fire up the trains, LOL! And why I had a rockslide in the South Yuba Canyon the first time I ran my Yellowstone.
Ain’t technology a hoot?
Tom [:P][:P]

5

I don’t have a subwoofer. I needed to hook it all up just to see if there was enough “sub” to “woof”, enough low end in the samples to driver a subwoofer low enough to make an audible difference.

There is.

It’s on the list, probably early to midweek. Kids are here this weekend and there’s a train show downtown.

If you don’t hear from me then, it means I’m in jail, for telling the cops, “I don’t care what the neighbors complained about, check THIS out”.

6

If your cops are anything like MY cops, they’ll just hang around and go “Wow!” while you make a fresh pot of coffee.
Tom [:D]

7

Sounds cool! Are you talking about that MRC synchro sound system?

8

Up till I was five, we lived within hearing range of the Monon line, but to see it you had to cross a big street, which I wasn’t allowed to do alone. Every day I’d drag my mom over there and we’d sit for hours listening to it rumble back and forth, spotting and picking up cars down in Broad Ripple before we’d finally get to see it.

Then I’d hook up with my buddy Jim and we’d climb the tree out front of the house, up to our “cab” and drive that bad boy all over the United States. Most kids at the Broad Ripple Park liked to play on the slides or swings or go swimming, but not me. They had a real Nickle Plate steamer there, with tender, on a couple sections of track, and I drove that guy day after day too.

When I was ten I had an HO layout in the basement, but I didn’t have any tools, didn’t know how to saw a board straight, only one turnout, no money, and after a while it got boring, so after the trains gathered dust till I was 16 or 17, we took it all down and packed it away.

I know how to cut a board straight now, I can afford more than one turnout, and this time, the layout’s up to stay. I’m not leaving anything, ever.

Can’t say I have.

I found one marked "loudness: and one called “surround” and one that says “speakers”, but none of them seem to be marked “mute”.

Each sound unit has a volume control on it, they work perfectly, full left gives me dead silence. The sound unit outputs run to the DPDT that has a center off position too, so I can flip the power feeds from steam to diesel without blowing the speakers. Ever see “Back to the Future”, near the

9

Rockslides?

Now THAT’S cool.

I’m thinking graphic EQ, a digital delay and maybe just a pinch of deep space reverb, and a couple Peavey CS-800’s driving a pair of HDH stacks. This area’s a little flat for rockslides, but if I can get university confirmation of magnitude four or five deflections on the Richter scale, I’ll be satisfied.

10

This kind of begs the question, “Is there such a thing as scale sound?”

Can or should an HO locomotive make a deafening roar?

Personally, I think that would only be cool for a very short period of time.

My sister is always telling her kids to use their “indoor voices”.[swg]

11

All the cops out here are good guys, except one. He’s about 85, humorless, and thinks he owns a stretch of the state highway a couple miles from my house. A buddy of mine was passing through the small town there, and hit 40 mph right about where the sign for 40 mph coming out of town. This cop pulls him over and starts writing a ticket for speeding and my buddy says he was only doing 40.

The cops says “yeah, but you weren’t to my sign yet”, and keeps writing.

No lie, he said “MY sign”, like he put it up himself or something.

If he shows up here, I’ll introduce him to Mr. Airhorn and blow him clean across the street.

:slight_smile:

12

I don’t understand the problem. What inputs on the “amp” (is it a receiver, or an integrated amp, or just a power amp?) are these sound generators (MRC Synchrosound?) hooked to? If you’ve got volume controls on the “amp” and the sound generators (MRC?) you should be able to control the volume adequately. If the “amp” is a receiver or integrated amp, it probably has some form of tone controls or equalizer built in allowing you to alter the bass output also. Sure does sound like you’re havin’ a lot of fun though! : )

Jeff

13

That’s the one, Loathar. But before you get too excited I should tell you that these aren’t professional quality samples. Yes, there’s bass there and there’s treble there, and maybe with some EQ and a little depth from a good reverb unit they might approach reality, but I won’t know that till I try it.

Here’s the thing though. Folks are spending $100.00 PER LOCOMOTIVE for sound these days, sometimes more. Right now, they’re running through 1 and 1.5 inch speakers, but with a market that lucrative, all it takes is one manufacturer to offer 16 or 24 bit samples, rendered at 44.1 kilocycles for CD quality sound and then everyone will have to do it. It’ll be expensive at first, and (gulp), it may mean replacing some decoders with a new method entirely, but with realism driving this hobby and people already spending that kind of money, it is going to happen just as sure as the sun rises tomorrow.

Well, there’s one school of thought that says if a prototype locomotive puts out ,say, 120 to 145 decibels of sound pressure 1 meter from the source, then a HO model should put out 1/87th as much.

I’m not in that school. I don’t even know where that school is.

Two reasons. One, I like it to sound real. The sounds they make is one of the things I like best about trains. Two, sound is a funny critter. You may or may not look at the setup when you go to a concert, but I do. The house mains are usually tri-amped, the signal split int

14

Well I am glad you are talking about sound and are not going to leave the hobby.

But your last post Is just way to over my head. Which is why I am staying away from sound. DCC is great and the sound options are nice. But they do nothing but confuse my poor little head. So its standard 4 function non sound decoders for me, And about 4 miles of block wiring I don’t have to worry about.

James

15

I got the MRC synchro sound sytem for Christmas but I am only using the speaker that came with it. So i do not knock a train off the tracks[;)] We will see when she is all up and running

16

Speakers are everything! Once had a good set for my expensive stereo. Had one beer too many one day and played an old 45 of, you guessed it, a Steam Engine! Dad picked it up in 66’ when we were in Steam Town USA, Bellows Falls. Yep toasted the tweeters, shook the windows and blew the dust off the walls.

A good set of speakers will do that but hopefully handle the signal from the stereo. Ever see $500 go poof?

17

YOU BET, and if someone thinks I’ll be satisfied with pathetic CD quality, they had better think again (long live 1972 Marantz quality sound). I want THX quality sound ON board. Yeah, I know probably physically impossible but I can wish can’t I?

And people tell me I’m crazy because when I say CDs sound flat to me and that I can hear the sound that makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. Sounds like your ears are in the same camp as mine.

The good old “Loudness Filter”. It also increases the volume in attempt make up for the human ears inability to hear well at those frequencies. Then there are the speakers that are opposite, like my Bose. They have concentrated on high and low frequencies and got them pretty good, but no good mid range at all [V]

Also sort of like the very loud factory settings on the QSI sound units. [B)] Trying to make up in volume what they don’t have in bass response.

[quote]
QUOTE: The way around this, without building a 60 odd foot speaker in your house and driving it with state

18

… and all that to move enough air to reach the listener’s EAR where the lowest guitar E fundimental is approx. 86 CPS…

REALISTIC train rumble is 2 full octave’s below that. Cone speaker’s break up (rattle) (double) (flap) at too-low frequencies and a 1" speaker can’t move enough air to hear below 500 Hz - even if the amp can produce it. Sub-Woofers get expen$ive - the lower you go.I use a $100 Radio Shack 12" sub-w. and it can’t go below 50 Hz. My AR3’s can.

Since you have Carpentry skill’s, obtain some Folded Horn speaker plan’s from Kipsch Associate’s (used to be in Hope Ark) or Electro Voice in Buchannan MI, and build. Wth the proper 15" driver it will go down to 31Hz. and a 15 watt tube amp will drive it, and shatter window’s. Paul Klipsch was a Pipe Organ freak. and his plywood cabinet occupied a corner triangle about 3’ wide and 5’ high.

TWO problem’s will be solved. Moving air, and at super-low frequencies. The low end of your keyboard will also throb with joy.

19

[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by jeffers_mz

Peavey???..why not go for the big dogs…Crown MacroTech 5002 VZs into a 32 box EV X-Array system???

20

One more reason to believe model railroad sound isn’t “there” yet. Having watched both MIDI and digital sound evolve, I can see that in this hobby we’re still in the formative years. The technology is still raw and unpolished. Before long you won’t see all the exposed wires or have to deal with the underlying technology, you’ll just put the locomotive on the track and the sound will come up when you tell it to. The technology will become transparent to the user, except for those who like getting down to the detail level and making changes.

Well, that got my attention, something I never considered. Guess I better get those angle braces stained and onto the table legs to steady her up a bit. Can’t deal with any locomotive casualties right now. Yikes!

[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Fergmiester
Speakers are everything! Once had a good set for my expensive stereo. Had one beer too many one day and played an old 45 of, you guessed it, a Steam Engine! Dad picked it up in 66’ when we were in Steam Town USA, Bellows Falls. Yep toasted the tweeters, shook the windows and blew the dust off the walls.

A good set of speakers will do that but hopefully handle the signal from the stereo. Ever see $500 go poof?[/quo