N Scale Sound and future purchasing decisions

[EspeeGoldenState]

Coming from HO into N scale, it was tough to do as HO has far more better selections and easier installations for sound. That being said with speakers getting smaller and better representing the actual sound of a prime move has come a long way. N scale is definitely getting better.

I vowed I would never own a steamer without sound in it and to this day that is true. The chuff and stack talking in a non sound makes it look more toy like. Outside of the 6 steamers I have with sound I have yet to install them any road diesels. But with saying that I just done have the time or equipment (or money) to mill out a frame, or purchase the decoder and speaker. My passenger fleet will be the first to get sound with gradual proliferation of the road fleet. I do own 3 Athearn FP45s and F45 that I use on my 1969 version of Santa Fe's El Capitan and my F7As have MRC sound decoders in them.

The sound options do come at a higher price point, but there is also a little bit of savings that come with it as well. It's not always easier or cheaper to go from DC/DCC to sound at a later date without costing more than you would have in the beginning.

As others have pointed out, a lot of sound starts to get noisy and distracting and then annoying. It's all about sound levels in my opinion, if I can here the sound from the other side of the layout from another crew, then sure it would get old, but if I could here only my set of power, or others idling close by, then its not as bad.

I own MRC decoders as well as Digitrax soundbugs. Neither in my opinion are up to par of Tsunamis or LokSound. I own locomotives with QSI and BLI sound decoders in them and they are ok, but to me they not in the top. I can't exactly comment on the WoWSound but from what I've seen/heard I'm just not a fan of them quite yet.

Every has a different like about model railroading, some what it as close to what we remember growing up next to the tracks. I remember living on a 1% four mile long grade and listening to the then new SP GEs in notch 8 or the roar of EMD 645s screaming up the cut past my house just 20 yards away. You can set up your sound to mimic those same situations.

Chris

[jagged ben]

Believe it or not it was BLI PAs that converted me.   I decided to get them instead of Kato mainly because I thought they looked better, and then after I adjusted the sounds to my liking and ran them for a bit I realized it just made running trains more fun.  Mainly for blowing the horn.  I by no means will try to put sound in all my locos (I haven't even DCC'd them all yet), but I see investing in enough to have a horn on the lead loco and a bit more prime mover sound in large consists.

You have to adjust the volumes though. 

[peteski]

We need more cowbell horn! 

[AKNscale]

To be very frank, Bill, the non-sound interests need to be represented in these discussions. The impression in various forums is "all about sound", and the model manufacturers are taking this as an apparent large interest in the community. I don't think it's as big as they think it is, it's just louder... so to speak... uhhh... so to speak.

However, I'm all with John, too - satisfy both interests with base models that easily accommodate sound but don't force it. Like he said, "Sound Ready", with speaker space and channels for wire runs, removable weight(s) as placeholders. This has the benefit of making it possible to do like Atlas does with DCC, with, or without, or upgrade to your own preferences since the market right now is very dynamic and is going to take a while to shake-out the best options.

Sound is the new big thing in N scale, and I'm guessing that "sound ready" models don't exist because of both added cost and that it isn't necessary. Those who want sound but don't want to install them aren't going to and are probably going to wait for it to come out with sound or pay someone else to do it. Those who are willing to put them in themselves are going to regardless. I think it's a really neat idea, but I doubt that the manufacturers will get behind it. Although I find it odd that BLI would offer only sound units as all of the other manufacturers still offer DCC ready locos.

[robert3985]

Sound is the new big thing in N scale...

Hmmmm....sound in N-scale is "new"???  I bought my first Athearn sound-equipped Challengers in 2007, and my first Athearn Big Boy purchases were in 2006...that's eleven years ago.  I've been buying sound equipped engines or installing sound now for over a decade and Soundtraxx is on its third generation of sound decoders.  ESU Loksound is on its 4th gen...so, I kinda don't feel like sound is a "new" big thing for N-scale, although I gotta admit, I'm happy it's being factory installed in so many new releases nowadays.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Point353]

The expectation that prototypical sound is going to come out of a 10mm speaker is fantasy.  However, certain aspects of prototype sounds are pretty well rendered, such as the bell, the horn/chime, rod clank, steam letting off, and brake squeal.  Lower frequency sounds like steam chuff, prime mover rumble, will never sound correctly unless a major technological advance happens.  To expect this, then being disappointed when the sound isn't "right", is a case of misdirected expectations.

That's the situation in a nutshell.
Without that missing lower frequency information, the reproduction of loco sounds never seems "right" to me.
I'd prefer the option of being able to buy "silent" locos, rather than having to pay for a feature that won't be used because it will prove to be an ongoing source of disappointment and dissatisfaction.

[Blazeman]

I need to get around more for a better sampling of N sound. The Bachman K4 and the BLI M1 seem acceptable, but I model a decade later. Just haven't experienced enough diesel switchers to come away with an opinion. Some early E units with sound are just "tinny" to me and not worth the extra $.

I liken the technology to when many of us were teenagers. We bugged our parents to buy a color TV. "We'll wait for them to work out the bugs" was the excuse not make the purchase. The manufacturers will eventually get it where it needs to be. 

 

[jdcolombo]

Hmmmm....sound in N-scale is "new"???  I bought my first Athearn sound-equipped Challengers in 2007, and my first Athearn Big Boy purchases were in 2006...that's eleven years ago.  I've been buying sound equipped engines or installing sound now for over a decade and Soundtraxx is on its third generation of sound decoders.  ESU Loksound is on its 4th gen...so, I kinda don't feel like sound is a "new" big thing for N-scale, although I gotta admit, I'm happy it's being factory installed in so many new releases nowadays.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

Bob, you're right that sound in N scale in general is not new.  Like you, I started putting sound decoders in my steam locos back in 2003, with the Soundtraxx DSD (sound only, if I remember correctly) and using a Lenz silver mini for motor control.  But sound in N-scale DIESELS is pretty new - really there was no way to do it in a hood diesel until discovery of the cell-phone type speakers and not really doable until the LokSound micro v.4, which took 8-ohm speakers instead of the 100-ohm that the v.3 used.  The Tsunami micro was too big to fit back then, and Zimo didn't have any US-prototype sound files (not sure the MX649 existed yet, either).   So it really wasn't until the combination of ESU's LokSound Micro Select/V.4 and the "sugar cube"-type speakers becoming widely available that sound in an N scale hood diesel was even possible.  I think I did my first hood-diesel sound installation back in late 2012, but it might have been 2013.

And face it - diesels are where most of the sales are in N scale.   So if sound is going to become really mainstream, it has to be offered in hood diesels.  I do believe the progress made in the past 3-4 years on this front is remarkable, but manufacturers still haven't quite figured out the "speaker/enclosure" end of things.

John C.

[jdcolombo]

I need to get around more for a better sampling of N sound. The Bachman K4 and the BLI M1 seem acceptable, but I model a decade later. Just haven't experienced enough diesel switchers to come away with an opinion. Some early E units with sound are just "tinny" to me and not worth the extra $.

I liken the technology to when many of us were teenagers. We bugged our parents to buy a color TV. "We'll wait for them to work out the bugs" was the excuse not make the purchase. The manufacturers will eventually get it where it needs to be.

Try these two videos.  I don't think the sound is "tinny" but like Bob and Peteski point out, you can't get the 30-hz rumble of a diesel prime mover from an 8x12mm speaker.  If you want that, floorstanding home stereo speakers with a 15" subwoofer is what you need.

  (ignore the cat meowing in the background!)

John C.

[MK]

The problem is the sound itself (the speaker and enclosure). This is N scale - you can't really install a speaker in an enclosure on a sound decoder, even if it had a plug-n-play connector.  And a non-sound model will not come with a speaker preinstalled in it either.  There are some European models (and even the recent Big Blow turbine model from Scale trains) which accept plug-n-play decoders, but the speaker installation will still require wires/soldering.  I don't see a drop-in sound installs as being really viable in N scale. That is probably the reason more ane more N scale manufacturers are doing factory-installed sound decoders.

I'm not talking about a single all-in-one unit with the decoder and speaker that you just plug in.

I'm thinking "Sound Ready" meaning the frame already milled that accept some specific speaker but the void is filled by a user removable weight (when the speak is installed).  The sound decoder can then be installed as we normally install decoders now.  So in a sense it's really "Sound/DCC ready".  To get to the speaker, you run tiny magnet wires from the two with some miniature connectors.

[AKNscale]

Hmmmm....sound in N-scale is "new"???  I bought my first Athearn sound-equipped Challengers in 2007, and my first Athearn Big Boy purchases were in 2006...that's eleven years ago.  I've been buying sound equipped engines or installing sound now for over a decade and Soundtraxx is on its third generation of sound decoders.  ESU Loksound is on its 4th gen...so, I kinda don't feel like sound is a "new" big thing for N-scale, although I gotta admit, I'm happy it's being factory installed in so many new releases nowadays.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

New big thing, not brand new thing sir. It's been around for a while, but not with the flexibility that it has now.

[JMaurer1]

Years ago I was in HO scale and when sound started coming out we had some sound units installed in engines. Now in HO scale, there is room for better and bigger speakers...in fact, several were installed in dummy units (since small speakers were not that common...I said YEARS ago). IMHO, the problem with sound is one engine sounds fine, and it's fun to play with the horn and bell. Two units sound fine as long as they are not in the same area, but after three units, it was just noise. Bells ringing, horns blowing, and the constant rumble of the diesels just all became too much. I stopped using sound then and I don't see me going back to it now. Give me N scale engines that are 'sound ready' just like PnP DCC diesels are now and (while I won't be installing sound in any) I won't have a problem with that (put a weight were the speaker would be), but I'm not going to be adding or buying any diesel with sound in it...ever. A $100 N scale engine with $100+ sound system is crazy (IMHO).

I remember when DCC was just rolled out with $30 decoders and we were told that as DCC became more popular, the decoders would become cheaper...like $5-10. They would be so cheap that all engines would come with them installed...never happened. Even now, lots of people change out the 'factory installed' decoders because the quality of them isn't that good (but we still pay $25-50+ more for that factory installed decoder...I'm talking to you Bachmann). I think sound is just another way to up the price of engines and while a nice novelty, after you have two and play with it awhile, it just isn't that exciting and not worth the headache.

[Blazeman]

Try these two videos.
John C.

Thanks for those, John. They definitely have raised the bar and equate with HO. Just hadn't encountered any equipment with them in small N circles I navigate.

[jdcolombo]

Thanks for those, John. They definitely have raised the bar and equate with HO. Just hadn't encountered any equipment with them in small N circles I navigate.

Just to be clear - those aren't factory sound installations; those are ones I have done myself.  And the reason you haven't encountered anything like it, is because the manufacturers haven't quite been able to replicate the speaker/enclosure part.  The Atlas S-2 actually got closest; the IM SD40-2 and the Rapdio Trains GMD-1 were pretty good, but still pretty "thin" sounding with their stock speaker/enclosure setups.  The problem (so far) is that the speaker/enclosure setup that produces the best sound would probably need some hand assembly, and that runs squarely into issues with pricing and assembly costs.   So think of these videos as "what is possible" doing an aftermarket installation by hand - NOT "what is currently available from manufacturers."

John C.

[peteski]

I'm not talking about a single all-in-one unit with the decoder and speaker that you just plug in.

I'm thinking "Sound Ready" meaning the frame already milled that accept some specific speaker but the void is filled by a user removable weight (when the speak is installed).  The sound decoder can then be installed as we normally install decoders now.  So in a sense it's really "Sound/DCC ready".  To get to the speaker, you run tiny magnet wires from the two with some miniature connectors.

While that does make sense, there are so many speakers available. Even if the manufacturer decided to make the opening in the chassis to fit some particular speaker, how about the speaker enclosure? You'll need that too. Then, like with everything else nowadays, items has very short life. A speaker recommended by the model manufacturer might go out of production (we have seen this documented here already) and no direct-replacement might be available. In that case you will still end up having to modify the opening in the chassis to accept another speaker/enclosure.  Then who will supply the ready-o-install speaker with the wiring and connector already attached?  The company which makes the model itself? Some small cottage industry which might not be around for a long time?

Don't get me wrong - I like your overall concept but the execution would be very difficult. That is how I see that.