Tsunami review at good ol’Tony’s:
http://www.tonystrains.com/tonystips/2005/062505.htm
Sounds good !!! (Pun intended!)
BTW:
FUMTH
Sounds like they are making some progress. People have been waiting so long that
the demand will probably be greater than the supply. I should have reserved a couple
of them way back. Dave
I may actually have to drive to Cinci for the NMRA train show as there seems to be a lot going on that will be fun to witness first hand. Bruce at Litchfield station is another of the Beta testers and he is also very impressed with the Tsunami so far.
They probably could have picked a better name though…
Of course when they picked the name (2 or more years ago) it did not have the image of the disaster 6 months ago. We had a big debate on the forum just after the Tsunami hit as to if they should change the name.
Thank you George for your ‘head’s up’ post…
I see Tony’s installed two 1" speakers (like BLI) in the tender. This moves more air to produce more volume - which has been BLI’s main deal .
SOUNTRAXX has been more oriented in sound ‘accuracy’ and not the ‘one-sound- fit’s-all’ philosophy.
Looking forward to hearing the turbocharged 645 EMD version.
I was getting worried there. I was about to convert my Tsunami orders to three QSI equipped orders coming out in October & November.
Hopefully there will be an July announcement. Who wants to take bets on an official release date? [:D]
Tsunami
What will this thing cost,and will it work with DC or do you have to have DCC?[:P][2c]
Jim
According to SoundTraxx’s web site, one of the differences between the Tsunami and their earlier decoders is that it is designed so that it will work on non-DCC, analog powered layouts.
MSRP is $179.00. Street price appears to be around $140.00.
It also offers ‘silent running’ on the motor drive, so no more buzzing motors interfering with the sound quality.
–Randy
If that’s true, then …YEESSSSSSS!!
This is going to be really interesting.
I checked out LOK Sound’s website. I clicked on the upload chart and WOW! What a wide choice of prime mover sounds! I wi***hough that LOK sound would post some sound samples of these though. The only sounds you can access are the Europeon locomotives.
All in all, if the quality is good and prices competitive, Soundtraxx is going to have some HEAVY competition!
Looking forward to it!
I give up. I searched all over both Tony’s and Soundtraxx sites and cannot find the Tsunami “sounds” that you are listening too. I can only find the old normal 8-bit DSD-150 clips. Where are they hiding?
Just a note of clarification for my behalf, please. Do the sound decoders operate JUST sound, or sound AND operation? In other words, would I need just a Tsunami decoder to both operate and have my locomotive make all those nifty realistic sounds? Or, would I need another decoder in addition to the Tsunami to operate my locomotive?
Thanks!
Tom
Tom,
They control the motor and the sound function. You won’t need two decoders, the Tsunami will do it all…
Thanks, Guy! That’s what I was hoping. $140 just for a sound decoder - and that’s all! - seemed a bit steep to me.
Tom
And that gives you an idea of what a deal some of the BLI locos are - subtract out the cost of the sound decoder and speakers. Pull out the soudn cost fromt he Standard Hobby price my father-in-law paid for his PRR M1, and you have what would amount to to $40 or less loco. The only $40 steam locos you can get are Bachmann non-Spectrum, and not one of those runs as nice nor is as well detailed as this BLI model.
Notice too there is only a $100 difference for those BLI locos they offer without the sound, and also between Atlas’ sound/no sound pricing. Also keep in mind the non-sound units don’t even have a DCC decoder - so add another $15-$20 and THEN compare - the sound is actually pretty cheap!
–Randy
Agreed Randy. Sound is relatively cheap.
I’ve been reading the soundtraxx news group on yahoo. It does finally look to be a highly impressive decoder.
There’s only one other minor thing about QSI that I liked over soundtraxx…fewer dropouts. The capacitor on the QSI equipped units, and multiple pickups really helped with dropout issues. In matter of fact, I have yet for a QSI unit to drop sound due to a bad spot in the track.
On the other hand, my two Soundtraxx plug-n-play modules I installed dropped out numerous times especially at slow speeds. I’m hoping the new units behave better. I’ll let you guys know when I get mine in the mail.
What does that mean[X-)][X-)][X-)]
DRew