after hearing of it and watching a video clip of a digitrax presentation i became interested as it meant that 'good' sound could be had in small N scale loco's. BUT
1, the cost of just the soundtrax part of the system ( without the digitrax transponding kit to go with it ) works out around $100 per running loco as the system only works upto 6 loco's sounds at a time. expensive compared to some sound decoders?
2, it is only of use to fixed layouts as it ought/has to be wired in to a system with block detection and transponding for it to work properly/ limited use?
3, any decent sized club layout would require a huge investment in block detection and surround sound units as more than 6 trains are likely to be running at once. and can the system allow the movement of trains from one sound section to another?
i guess that i think it is a much more costly way of getting sound ( i'm sure it is quite an improvement ) but how much??!! and you can't take your sound with you to another layout!! i think that quite a few folks like to take sound equipped loco's to clubs or fellow modellers layouts for a run and having the sound 'off loco' puts an end to that. i'm sure a few folks with $$'s to spare with mid sized layouts will benefit from the system, but for the average joe or club setup, it is probably going to be cost prohibitive to setup properly.
this seems interesting , but it looks like the price will get out of hand pretty quickly
i looked at tonystrains.com for pricing and to see what's required
you need a BDL168 @ $119.95 . that gives you 16 detected blocks . unfortunately it doesn't give you any transponding which is required for surroundtrax so you need to add an RX4 @ $39.95 for 4 transponding sections , with a maximum of 2 RX4's for each BDL168 . let's say you want 8 transponding blocks so that's going to cost you $199.85 . that's assuming you're using digitrax (or apparently soundtraxx) decoders that have built in transponders (it's possible other brands do too , i don't know)
then you have to buy the surroundtraxx system . it's $556.95 and will provide sound for up to 6 locos . unfortunately it only works with 6 transponding blocks . i know digitrax and soundtraxx worked together designing this equipment , couldn't they have made the surroundtraxx work with 8 blocks ???
the best case scenario would be where the number of transponding blocks and the number of surroundtraxx-able blocks are equal , in this case it's 24
you'd need 3 BDL168s = $359.85
6 RX$'s = $239.70
and 4 surroundtraxx = $2227.8
total is $2827.35 or $117.80 per block
and i'm pretty sure this doesn't include speakers . not sure if it includes amplification or not
at this time it's the only way to get decent sound in Z or N , and improved sound in HO . but it seems very expensive to me , even for a small layout
ernie
i claim no special knowledge of surroundtraxx block detection or transponding , if i've made a mistake in figuring out how this works , please correct me , i'd actuall like to be wrong about this because i think it's a fantastic idea