suggestions for Bachmann EM-1 speaker/s

[Bill H]

Group;
Any suggestions on speaker/s for the Bachmann EM-1s? Tons of room in the tender... Maybe a big HO or ? scale speaker with a better low frequency response. Or a couple of large speakers or?

Just trying to think outside of the box here, or tender...

John C. - I seem to remember you did an EM-1, or at least I remember your having an EM-1, but I don't see it on the best of list. And if you had it to do over today, what would you change?

Kind regards,
Bill

[jdcolombo]

I did do an EM-1, but I forgot to take photos.

Given the size of the tender, however, the answer about "what would I do today" is pretty simple:  ESU LokSound V5 DCC micro; TCS KA-1 keep alive, 13x18mm speaker in its own separately-sealed enclosure.  Strip out all the Bachmann stuff and hard-wire the trucks.
Use a small piece of 1/32"-thick single-sided circuit board at the front of the tender for wire attachment.

Here's a photo of a similar layout in a Walthers/LL Berkshire:

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

Some folks prefer the Tsunami II for steam, because its Equalizer provides a way to fine-tune the sound to make it more realistic.  The TSU2 is a fine alternative, but I have standardized on ESU, so I forego the EQ and find that with a 13x18 speaker in a properly-sized enclosure (sides 9mm high), the sound is excellent.  And I find that I can better match the chuffs to the driver rotation on the ESU.  But the LokSound no longer has a huge advantage in slow-speed motor control over the Tsunami; you can adjust the TSU to get almost-equal performance, IMHO.

John C.

[Lemosteam]

I did do an EM-1, but I forgot to take photos.

Given the size of the tender, however, the answer about "what would I do today" is pretty simple:  ESU LokSound V5 DCC micro; TCS KA-1 keep alive, 13x18mm speaker in its own separately-sealed enclosure.  Strip out all the Bachmann stuff and hard-wire the trucks.
Use a small piece of 1/32"-thick single-sided circuit board at the front of the tender for wire attachment.

Here's a photo of a similar layout in a Walthers/LL Berkshire:

(Attachment Link)

Some folks prefer the Tsunami II for steam, because its Equalizer provides a way to fine-tune the sound to make it more realistic.  The TSU2 is a fine alternative, but I have standardized on ESU, so I forego the EQ and find that with a 13x18 speaker in a properly-sized enclosure (sides 9mm high), the sound is excellent.  And I find that I can better match the chuffs to the driver rotation on the ESU.  But the LokSound no longer has a huge advantage in slow-speed motor control over the Tsunami; you can adjust the TSU to get almost-equal performance, IMHO.

John C.

Sounds like another enclosure design to me!  John if you could take some caliper measurements for me that would be great.

[NDave]

For my Athearn challenger, I ordered a 13 x 18 mm sugar cube speaker with "double deep" sound chamber from SBS, and sanded the chamber down until it would just fit under the tender deck when the shell was installed (behind the speaker are two capacitors totaling 800uF)

[Bill H]

Dave, how does it sound with that extended chamber?

[Bill H]

Given the size of the tender, however, the answer about "what would I do today" is pretty simple:  ESU LokSound V5 DCC micro; TCS KA-1 keep alive, 13x18mm speaker in its own separately-sealed enclosure.  Strip out all the Bachmann stuff and hard-wire the trucks.
Use a small piece of 1/32"-thick single-sided circuit board at the front of the tender for wire attachment.
John C.

Hi John;
Thanks for the input. I settled on ESU myself some time ago. Any input on which 13x18? I am leaning towards CUI at that size with a good sized sound chamber. Thoughts?

Kind regards,
Bill

[jdcolombo]

I use the CUI 13x18 these days.  Enclosure is made from .030 styrene; for the Berk, the sides were 9mm high, 10mm total with bottom; you'll need to take some measurements of the inside of the EM-1 tender shell and see how high you can get away with. 

This thread of how I did a sound install in the Bachmann Berkshire tender might give you some ideas for how to do the EM-1; it's a bit dated, and doesn't use a TCS KA-1 (which I now put in all my steam installations), but the photos of hard-wiring the trucks might be useful.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=35889.0

John

[jdcolombo]

Sounds like another enclosure design to me!  John if you could take some caliper measurements for me that would be great.

Hi John.  I can do this over the weekend.  I use the CUI 13x18mm speaker; the real question is how deep the enclosure should be.  For the Berk, 10mm overall height works fine, but that tender is big, and the coal load provides some additional internal height for the speaker.  In a lot of other installations, I'm limited to about 8mm of overall height for the enclosure.

John C.

[Bill H]

Thanks John, very helpful.
Kind regards,
Bill