N Scale Sound and future purchasing decisions

[mmagliaro]

I have mulled over this whole sound/no-sound thing for a long time, as I'm sure others have.

In general, I find the sound from N Scale models to make them seem more toy-like (the exact opposite of what sound is trying achieve!).  If I were charged for that, and then had to remove it all, or replace it all with a better decoder and speaker, I'd be quite annoyed.   Beyond that, even with well-done sound, I still find it fatiguing after a few minutes.  So what is it about me (and other people), who just don't like it? 

Let's back up a step and compare this to the ongoing preference (or not) for having built-in DCC.
Using DCC is a very practical, operational preference.  Somebody who doesn't use DCC may try it and then say, "Hey!  This is cool.  Maybe I'll give this a try."  Or they might say, "This is cool, but not cool enough that I care to put it on my layout."   And they may grumble that engines are coming ready-made with DCC in them, but the argument can be made that this is the natural progression of technology, and if you don't like it, you will have to disable it yourself.

Sound is different.  Sound is a much more sensory, personal preference.  Disliking it can be akin to disliking bright lights,
hot weather or spicey food.   Being forced to buy an engine with sound in it, pay for it, and then find out how to disable it can be more personally irritating to customers because they view it as nothing more than noise pollution. 

It's like buying an engine and being told by the manufacturer, "Here's your engine, but from now on you have to keep a TV tuned to a channel that runs annoying infomercials any time you run it, we're going to charge you extra, and if you don't like it, it's YOUR problem to disable it." 

[Chris333]

I had 3 sound locos and sold off 2 of them. Anyone what to buy the 3rd?

[tehachapifan]

I agree that sound definitely appears to be a personal preference thing. Perhaps I would grow a bit tired of it if there were multiple sound units running at the same time for long periods but, with my current small fleet of sound locos, I can't get enough!

As far as N scale locos with sound sounding toy-like, to me my SD9 sound install sounds exactly like the SD9's that used to run several hundred feet from my house. This may be one of the personal-preference issues between modelers. I don't expect or want a sound decoder that makes it sound like there's a 1:1 scale loco in the middle of the layout room, but rather one that is no closer than a few hundred feet away (my typical, closest [scale] viewing distance).

[jdcolombo]

WHile that does make sense, there are so many  speakers available. Even if the manufacturer decided to make the opening in the shell fit some particular speaker, hwo about the enclosure? You need that oo. Then, like with everything else nowadays, everything 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 is available. In that case you will still end up having to modify the shell to accept another speaker.  Then who will supply the 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.

Hi Peteski.

I think you're over-estimating the difficulty of this.  When you think about it, diesel frames (and we're talking about frames, not shells - nothing needs to be done with the shells) are pretty much all the same.  The length varies a bit, but the width is pretty uniform because . . . well, there's only so much width available in the prototype.  Can't get wider, or you start hitting cars on the track next to you or sides of tunnels.  All diesels have a fuel tank area, and they are pretty uniform, too - again, length varies, but not the width really. 

So say a manufacturer like Atlas decided to go this route.  Their first generation diesels (RS11, GP7, etc.) probably have the smallest tanks.  I measured the one on my GP7's as about 16mm x 16mm.  So suppose that Atlas designed their split frames with a cutout on each half that was 10mm long by 7mm wide, and when you put the frame together, that becomes a 10 x 14mm hole.  They supply a "plug" for that hole as delivered from the factory (made of the same material as the frame; a tungsten plug would be nice, but too expensive).  The rest of the engine is DCC ready, just like it is now, except that like Intermountain, they also run stainless-steel bands around the motor housing, from the top to the bottom, perhaps with "tabs" on the top (like the motor brush tabs we all deal with today), but with the bottom simply terminating at the bottom of the motor housing.  Nothing here is difficult - the frame halves are cast with the cutout in place.  The stainless-steel "feeder" strips can easily be added to the motor housing, just like IM did.  That's it from Atlas' standpoint.  No more difficult than designing the DCC-ready frame to begin with and no more difficult to manufacture.

Now imagine that the DCC sound manufacturers make a board that fits on the top of the frame of this loco - just like Digitrax and TCS already make drop-in boards, only now they are sound boards (ESU may have one of these on the way in the form of their "retrofit" decoder board).  Atlas doesn't do this - they aren't in the decoder business.  But Digitrax, ESU, TCS, whomever does, because there is a market for sound retrofits in these new "sound-ready" models.  The board either has two pads (like the IM board) that contact the stainless steel speaker leads around the motor housing, or maybe not - maybe there are just two pads and you as the modeler have to solder two short wires from the pads to the stainless strips.  This takes care of the decoder part - again, no more complex physically than designing a drop-in DCC-only decoder (and Digitrax ALREADY has drop-in sound decoders for several N-scale diesels).

What about the speaker?  Well, the decoder manufacturers could supply an 8x12mm speaker in a suitable enclosure along with their "GP7 board."  Or maybe not - maybe they leave that to folks like Tony's Train Exchange or Streamlined Backshop.  In these days of 3D printing, getting a printed enclosure that pretty precisely fits that Atlas cutout is a no brainer.  John LeMerise designed such an enclosure with my help that exactly fits the Soberton 8x12mm speaker, and is exactly 6mm high, which is exactly the amount of "headroom" you have when you mill off the rear shelf of pretty much ANY hood diesel so that the shelf is even with the phosphor-bronze bearing-holding "spring."   SBS's speaker enclosures are already 3D printed; I asked Bryan Vianco to think about doing one that was deeper (for more air space), and a week later he debuted his "double deep" enclosures. This is not either an engineering or production problem - it's pretty much being done today.  I have to mill off the shelf, but in my "sound ready" scenario, there is no milling involved: the speaker/enclosure combo fits the cutout in the fuel tank area of the frame.  You the modeler remove the plug, run two short wires to the stainless-steel pickups from the speaker to the stainless steel pickups on the motor.  Done.  I can even imagine places like SBS having a "GP7 Sound Install Kit" that includes the appropriate ESU sound board, a 3d-printed enclosure, an 8x12 speaker, and four short pieces of wire.

Really - I just don't see any production problems here.  Yes, frames would have to be redesigned with the fuel-tank "cutouts" and I know manufacturers are loathe to do that because of tooling costs, but they did it once to move to DCC-ready frames.  Doing it again, or doing it at least for new models as they are introduced isn't a manufacturing problem.  And Atlas doesn't have to get in the sound business - instead, they can let ESU, Digitrax, Zimo or whomever handle that end, and those companies wouldn't have to get into the speaker business; they could let enterprising dealers like SBS solve that end of it.

This wouldn't be a "drop in" job for the modeler, but it should be no more difficult than installing a two-piece TCS GP or CN-type decoder is now in a non-dcc ready frame. 

The real problem I see is that some segment of the modeling population doesn't want to undertake an after-market installation like this.  They want it all to come from the factory so that they can put the engine on their layout and just have it work.  OK - the "sound ready" idea won't satisfy these folks.  Maybe there are enough of them that there simply isn't a market for the "sound ready" idea.  But I suspect the opposite - I think there probably would be a bigger market for "sound ready" than actual factory-installed sound.   If I had a spare couple of million dollars, I'd try it myself .  I've always been willing to run expensive experiments!

John C.

[peteski]

Hi Peteski.

I think you're over-estimating the difficulty of this.

Oops!  I meant chassis.    That is what happens when I post messages right after waking up (and I don't drink coffee).    I went ahead and fixed my post.  My point is that there are seem to be too many variables involved to make a universal cavity for a speaker and then be able to buy and install a pre-wired speaker which will perfectly fit the cavity.  Sure, they can make a generic cavity large enough to accept many types of speakers, but then you are taking away the weight of the chassis (and every gram counts in N scale models for maximizing their pulling abilities).  At that is what the person I was replying to wanted - a pre-wired speaker with a connector which would plug into a plug-n-play sound decoder also installed in that chassis.

[MK]

John C., an excellent post!  And BTW, those two videos demo'ing the sound...that would be perfect for Chessie fans with the cat meowing in the background.  Not only do you get engine, bell, etc. noise but the cat in the cab too! 

Pete, that was me you were replying to.  Again, you are reading posts too literally.    Whether we have a pre-wired speaker with a wire/connector or spring contacts requiring no wires, or whatever, that's not the point.  Heck, in a few years maybe we don't even need speakers, maybe a piezo device or something else would be making the sound.  You were poo poo'ing the idea of an N scale drop in sound decoder as being viable and I think you need to look at the forest from the tree.  What John C. posted above is an excellent starting point and I think it can be eventually done.

And I bet they said the same thing when drop in DCC decoders were attempted.  OMG!  Look at how many different types of frame we have to accommodate???!!!  I mean, Atlas itself has a whole bunch and so does Kato and so does IM then Fox Valley came out, etc.  You mean we're going to have to make boards for each and everyone of these types of frames?  That's too many variables. 

[jdcolombo]

Hi MK.

That cat in the background is our orangish-black tabby Molly.  She can be very . . . uh . . . vocal if she thinks you are ignoring her.  It's OK for her to ignore YOU, but not the other way around. 

With regard to the variables - the truth is that there are fewer variables than we might think.  When I was talking with Matt Hermann at Indy this past summer, he said that they had figured out that their "retrofit" board would work in just about every DCC-ready split-frame diesel other than Kato.  You can also see this on the Digitrax site.  If you look at their drop-in decoder boards, all of them fit multiple diesels, because many different diesels use essentially the same chassis.  If it wasn't for the need to have the LEDs for lights in the right spot, a single board probably would fit dozens of different locos.

And I'm thinking the same thing for a speaker cutout.  Probably dozens could be done with a 10x14mm cutout; larger modern diesels might accommodate a 13x18 cutout.  Switchers would be a problem, but there we're probably restricted to the cab area for a speaker anyway, and I've put an 8x12 in an enclosure in both my Atlas S-2 (replacing the stock round speaker) and in my VO1000's.  So I really think that at the end of the day, there may be no more than a half-dozen variations of sound board & speaker cutout. 

This is all probably very Don Quixote-like, but maybe not - I've heard through back-channels that manufacturers have paid attention to what we've accomplished with retrofits on the sound front, and at least some of them are using that as a benchmark for their own efforts.  So who knows - given the progress over the past 3 years, I'll bet things will look a LOT different in 2020.

John C.

[MK]

So I really think that at the end of the day, there may be no more than a half-dozen variations of sound board & speaker cutout.

This is all probably very Don Quixote-like, but maybe not - I've heard through back-channels that manufacturers have paid attention to what we've accomplished with retrofits on the sound front, and at least some of them are using that as a benchmark for their own efforts.  So who knows - given the progress over the past 3 years, I'll bet things will look a LOT different in 2020.

John C.

Hi John,

Yep, I totally agree.  I think once they (or whoever) sit down and attack the problem piece meal they will realize that they don't need to consider a bazillion combinations.  Just like today's mobile decoders, as you said, all you need is a handful or two to accommodate all the locos out there.  Of course there will be special cases but those fall outside of the 95%.

BTW, for those two videos you posted, do you by chance have a how-to build thread either here or elsewhere?  I would love to attempt to do the mod myself.

[jdcolombo]

Hi John,

BTW, for those two videos you posted, do you by chance have a how-to build thread either here or elsewhere?  I would love to attempt to do the mod myself.

Yes for both:
RS3: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31953.0
GP7: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31186.0  (this isn't a full tutorial - just photos of the install).

All of my sound installation threads are collected at the end of the first message in this thread:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31981.0

Reading that first message in that thread might be helpful - for example, I no longer drill holes in a shell for sound egress.

Note that I now also routinely add two 16v, 220uf tantalum chip caps as "keep alive" in all my installations.  I do this by soldering the positive ends together, then connecting the far ends with a short piece of wire.  The caps go in the center channel that either I mill out (in an older frame) or which already exists in the DCC-ready frames.  Here's a photo of the caps soldered together with wires:

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I've also gone from using 1/8-watt round carbon resistors for LED dropping resistors to using a very small piece of single-sided 1/32" PC board with SMT 1K resistors.  You can see a photo of this tiny board in the thread on converting a Kato PA-1.  If I get time tomorrow, I'll take a photo of my most recent GP7 installation (in an older non-dcc-ready chassis that I milled a channel into) and post it.

John C.

[BCR751]

I'm coming down on the side of "no sound" , especially for diesels.  I have only heard one, actually two, sound installations that even come close to accurately representing a real locomotive and those are the RS-3 and the GP-7 done by John Columbo.  All others , and I have listened to a lot of 'em, are far too "tinny" and lack the lower frequencies.  I don't know what it is about John's installs but they are, in my opinion, bang on for those two locomotives.  And, it would be very difficult for me to have just a couple of locos with sound, therefore I would be looking at a huge cash outlay to convert my current roster, and I don't have a lot of locos.  If you figure a model purchased a few years ago would be around a hundred bucks.  then if not already installed, you probably purchased a DCC  decoder for another sixty bucks or so and now, to add sound, you have to turf the previous decoder and go with another one with sound for even more money.  I'm just not sure it's worth it, particularly for those of us that have been in the hobby for a while and would have to do major conversions.  Just my opinion.


Doug

[Cajonpassfan]

Cat, what cat, I thought it was the brake effects
In all seriousness, great examples, and great work, John.
I've been following this from the sidelines, reluctant to join this no win conversation. Personally, I love sound, well done sound, and operate on several layouts with multiple sound equipped locomotives going at it at once. The key to me is to keep it in proportion with the environment and scale...I don't understand the desire of some to have a two ounce locomotive sound like a two hundred ton behemoth. It's all about the ambiance and sound scales down just like physical proportions and mass. A little goes a long way.
But, it's not for everyone, and I respect that. Reality is that more options drive up the price of manufacturing, storage, distribution, etc., and it's convenient and infinitely more manageable to do a "one fits all" business model, ala BLI, even if the one "model" doesn't fit all needs. And I have to wonder what the real additional cost of a sound equipped model is compared to the additional business cost of designing, manufacturing, distributing etc.etc.... multiple variations of same. And I also suspect that for each buyer out there willing to do aftermarket sound installs, here are a hundred or a thousand who just want to buy RTR and be done with it?

Time will tell, so I will close with a couple of pics of my first sound install of 1999, using a 25mm square "edgeport" speaker manufactured for PFM I believe. I had it suspended vertically in an Alco B unit, barely clearing the rail tops,and  had to grind away some inside roof shell material to make it fit. About six years later, when "new generation" 18 x 35mm speakers became available, I supplemented the original speaker install  (the black box on the right). The stuff available today is far cry from that, and I can't help but believe that the future will bring even more dramatic technological advances. The side effect of that is that the cost of manufacturing a decoder is becoming more and  more minuscule compared to the business costs associated with getting a model to the buyer. I suspect that means sound equipped locos are the way of the future, good, bad, or indifferent. I could of course be wrong

Otto K.

[jdcolombo]

Here's a photo of my latest sound install in a non-dcc-ready Atlas GP7 frame.  I milled the center channel, milled down the front shelf for the speaker, and milled down the rear shelf for the decoder (an ESU LokSound Select Micro, with the plastic wrap removed).  Power pickup is via some .015 phosphor-bronze strips that I've folded over three times until they fit VERY snugly under the "fingers" at the front of the chassis.  I cut these strips so that they would be just a tad wider than the "fingers" so a tiny bit sticks out from the side.  The red and black wires are then soldered to the phosphor-bronze strip where it sticks out.  The various other parts are labeled.  The circuit board with the resistors is sitting on top of the front part of the decoder, held down by thin double-sided tape.  The speaker is in the front of the chassis, and the front LED is glued to the front of the speaker enclosure.  It took four years, but I think I've finally got a layout that works well!

John C.

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[powersteamguy1790]

Very nicely done John.

Bob..............

[jdcolombo]

I'm coming down on the side of "no sound" , especially for diesels.  I have only heard one, actually two, sound installations that even come close to accurately representing a real locomotive and those are the RS-3 and the GP-7 done by John Columbo.  All others , and I have listened to a lot of 'em, are far too "tinny" and lack the lower frequencies.  I don't know what it is about John's installs but they are, in my opinion, bang on for those two locomotives.  And, it would be very difficult for me to have just a couple of locos with sound, therefore I would be looking at a huge cash outlay to convert my current roster, and I don't have a lot of locos.  If you figure a model purchased a few years ago would be around a hundred bucks.  then if not already installed, you probably purchased a DCC  decoder for another sixty bucks or so and now, to add sound, you have to turf the previous decoder and go with another one with sound for even more money.  I'm just not sure it's worth it, particularly for those of us that have been in the hobby for a while and would have to do major conversions.  Just my opinion.


Doug

Hi Doug.

Thanks for the positive review of the RS3 and GP7!

There's no question that doing sound conversions is expensive.  Here's what I figure I have invested in a typical conversion:

Original locomotive (non-dcc): $75.
ESU LokSound Select Micro: $87.
Keystone Customs enclosure: $4.
8x12mm speaker: $3 (this is what you can get a Soberton 8x12 for from Digikey).
Two 16v, 220uf tantalum chip caps: $5 ($2.50 each, though they are getting cheaper).
603 LEDs, 1K SMT resistors; magnet wire, circuit board piece: $3 (I buy all this stuff in lots of 25 or more from Digikey, so they are pretty cheap).

Total: $174, give or take a buck.  Each conversion also takes about 3 hours of my time (including the milling).  And I haven't included the cost of my Proxxon MF70 milling machine (about $500, including the end mills I bought from McMaster-Carr) or my Pace digital soldering station (about $350) with a 1/64" tip that allows me to do things like solder 34-gauge magnet wire to 603 LED's and surface-mounted 1K, 1/8-watt resistors to 1/4" pieces of circuit board, or my LokProgrammer ($150).  Jeez - this hobby can get expensive . . . 

John C.

[peteski]

I don't know what it is about John's installs but they are, in my opinion, bang on for those two locomotives.

It is the speaker enclosure - he has been driving that point in multiple times! 

When designing sound-equipped locos, some basic acoustic knowledge really makes the difference. Unfortunately that point is lost (or has been lost) on most manufacturers. But I think that they are slowly figuring this out. The Scale Train's Big Blow set sounds quite good.

Here are some basics (which apply to all speakers - from giant concert systems to the tiny speaker inside a locomotive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudspeaker_enclosure  This is the important part:
The primary role of the enclosure is to prevent sound waves generated by the rearward-facing surface of the diaphragm of an open speaker driver interacting with sound waves generated at the front of the speaker driver. Because the forward- and rearward-generated sounds are out of phase with each other, any interaction between the two in the listening space creates a distortion of the original signal as it was intended to be reproduced. As such, a loudspeaker cannot be used without installing it in a cabinet of some type, or mounting it into a wall or ceiling. Additionally, because the sound waves would travel different paths through the listening space, the sound waves in an unmounted speaker would arrive at the listener's position at slightly different times, introducing echo and reverberation effects not part of the original sound.