Where is the best place to buy decoders?
There is no best that I know of.
Litchfield Station and Tony’s Trains are two I have used.
Next question would be, what is the best decoder?
Sound or non sound?
Opinions vary a lot.
Rich
I’ve had success buying off eBay. I normally go with Digitrax for non sound and MRC & SoundTraxx for sound decoders.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
Best place to buy a decoder?
Whichever place has them on the best sale. [:)]
Well, so far, I’ve bought my Digitrax decoders at a LHS, about a 50 minute drive. I’ve never looked on line for decoders, only looked up on the Digitax web site which decoder I needed.
I’d like to check out ESU, (I thick I have that right), for future sound up-grades, which I might have to buy on-line, or maybe through Walther’s, which is about an hour drive, one way.
My advice would be to figure out what decoder your looking for, as far as maker/brand, the features you want, and look for a shop, local, or otherwise, that sells it.
Mike.
I personally like Litchfield Station for price AND delivery. Tony’s is good but they don’t tell you if they are out of something from their website.
I ordered a TCS MC2 decoder (w/UK harness) and it took 4 weeks before it arrived. Not a big deal. Even so, I still would have preferred to have known it wasn’t in stock when I initially ordered it online from them.
Tom
Like most of my stuff - I almost always look to Modeltrainstuff. They usually have a full selection of ESU, Digitrax, Lenz, NCE, TCS, and SOundtraxx decoders. And a true real-time inventory system means no surprises at checkout time.
–Randy
You might check out Streamlined Backshop.
If you want cheapest I find that Yankee Dabbler Ebay store is cheapest.
There is no best anymore than there is a best loco or a best rail code or a best Pinot Noir. I like having multple options of places to order and have ordered from most of the places already mentioned.
More often I order from Litchfield. My last order of several things included a decoder that was expected to arrive in there shop a week from Thursday. They emailed me right away and asked it I wanted to wait to ship the whole order or ship part of the order now. I choose to wait and received the whole order a couple days earlier than their estimate.
I like dealing with one person for these kind of issues. That may well be the case for some of the other shops as well, because these retail operations are very usually mom and pop shops. Modeltrainstuff seems a little bigger, but I don’t really know that for a fact.
I get mine on eBay.
I get a lot of decoders from Litchfield Station. M.B.Klein (Model Train Stuff)is local to me but I save the 6% sales tax buying from out of town. On multiple decoder orders, the shipping is much less than the tax.
Hello all,
I’ve had good luck with eBay.
Take a look at the multi-packs.
A while back I purchased a 5-pack of Digitrax DH126PS for $88.95+$2.13 s/h. That’s $18.22 each!
I have also purchased Bachmann and TCS decoders at far less than retail.
Hope this helps.
I’ve gotten all of mine at the local hobby shop.
I’ve settled on LokSound Select for my typical decoder. Having the LokProgrammer, I can install any chosen sound file, so I usually buy the “generic” Select 6Aux (the encapsulated one with wires and 8-pin plug) and the similar Select Micro from modeltrainstuff.com, as they are usually in stock. I keep one of each on hand so I am ready for most any next loco conversion project when a loco arrives.
I also buy Keep Alives and Current Keepers of various sizes and keep them on hand so I have a variety of geometric sizes where one is typical better than others for a given space. These I either buy from modeltrainstuff or EBay.
Of course shipping cost is a factor, so I try to dilute any minimum shipping cost (for decoders, for instance) by buying more than one thing at a time. The relief valve for diluting shipping cost is to add a “want” item in the wish list to the order, or upgrading that item to the “need” category, which requires less justification.