First off, this isn't a rant, nor am I railing against Soundtraxx. I'm just looking for other opinions.
I bought a Soundtraxx Tsunami for a Bachmann Consolidation after hearing many people phrase the Tsunami and from hearing videos and clips of the sound decoder installed in various engines. It was a pretty simple install... I went off of some pictures I saw of similar installs in the same engine and everything went well.
After having the decoder installed for a bit now, I'm not 100% impressed with the actual sound of the decoder. The chuff seems to be pretty good, the bell is probably the best sounding part. But, the other sounds are just O.K. The real disappointing item is the whistles. The Light version of the decoder comes with 7 whistles, and all are substandard to me. The first two whistles are from C&S #78, and both of them have a bit of a distorted sound to my ears. The Shay, Peanut and Heisler whistles don't apply to my engine. The other whistles, like the actual Consolidation whistle and the single chime and 6 chime whistles don't sound like anything I have heard from this size of locomotive, either in person or in videos, and the 6 & single chime whistles don't sound very high quality either. Keep in mind that I have the volume on this turned down and not blasting, so no distortion should be happening. The other sounds don't have this problem, so I think it's the quality of the recorded whistles.
I have to say the motor control seems to be pretty good. I know sound is subjective and it depends on the install, but I believe I installed it pretty well and should have good quality sounds. I listen to QSI whistles and they seem to sound much better. I don't know about the medium or heavy Tsunami, but overall I'm not totally impressed with the light version and am starting to consider a change to something else.
davidmbedard Did you adjust the EQ? The Reverb? Did you adjust any of the other sounds? What speaker did you use? Baffle? The Tsunami has a plethora of adjustable settings that will take it alot farther than out of the box. I find that with a properly installed Tsunami, there should be NO distortion.David B
Did you adjust the EQ? The Reverb? Did you adjust any of the other sounds? What speaker did you use? Baffle?
The Tsunami has a plethora of adjustable settings that will take it alot farther than out of the box.
I find that with a properly installed Tsunami, there should be NO distortion.
David B
I´ll second that! I have started to play around with the sound settings of my Soundtraxx now and WOW! what a difference. As an example, I adjusted the Shay sounds and now its really chuffing, and sounds like the real ones actually .
Take your time and record what you do, and it will open a new world.
Good luck!
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You probably need a better quality, well baffled speaker. Contact Litchfield Station, Ulrich Models, or Tony's Train Exchange and get one of their recommended high-bass speakers and baffle.
Any complaints about using the Tsunami has been about speaker installation when the user figured it out. The Bachmann Consolidations now come with factory Tsunami installations and people are happy with them.
I had a sound issue with the Micro-Tsunami in the below installation so I purchased the rollers from Micro Mark and did the fine tuning of the decoder at the work bench. The speaker is in the ceiling pointing down with a small baffle behind the speaker. Really not much of a baffle though. Took quite a lot of adjustment but sounds nice now.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Well, I used a QSI High Bass Speaker in this. I have the sound going up with holes drilled in the coal load. I haven't messed with anything but the volume levels of the various sounds.... I had enough trouble programming a different address for this decoder so I haven't been purposely adjusting a bunch of CVs. As an example, here is a video I found on youtube with the various sounds and whistles, and I think the substandard sounding whistles kind of show up in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-mxkZJAE4w
Totally unrelated, I want to knwo what you did to the mechanism in that to get it quiet enough to even HEAR a sound decoder (I'm assuming that's the MDC Climax - which is just the AGEIR diesel with a different body shell), as those tend to be notorious coffee grinders with the stock motor and drive parts.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Well, mine sounds like that video I posted to. Is it worth changing the speaker to a QSI HP speaker instead? I guess I'll have to break out the manual and mess around with the settings.
On a related note, I have a Blueline F7, and it sounds pretty good, but I wondered if there would be any noticeable difference in putting a High Bass speaker into it instead of the regular speaker it seems to have.
Sure, I'll try that. There isn't much room for a baffle though. Right now I was using the tender as a baffle. I have noticed though that BLI steamers like the Hudson just have two speakers pointing down and the decoder on top of that, no baffle. My Blueline F7 just has a speaker pointing down into the frame with nothing else. Just for my own information was there a reason BLI went that route?
rrinker Totally unrelated, I want to knwo what you did to the mechanism in that to get it quiet enough to even HEAR a sound decoder (I'm assuming that's the MDC Climax - which is just the AGEIR diesel with a different body shell), as those tend to be notorious coffee grinders with the stock motor and drive parts. --Randy
Hi Randy
I sent you a PM so as to not hijack this thread. I really wanted to show how the rollers can help you fine tune a loco sound decoder at your work bench.
NYCentral1I'm just looking for other opinions. ...I bought a Soundtraxx Tsunami for a Bachmann Consolidation ..., I'm not 100% impressed with the actual sound of the decoder. ... The Light version of the decoder comes with 7 whistles, and all are substandard to me. The first two whistles are from C&S #78, and both of them have a bit of a distorted sound to my ears.
I went with the light version because the Soundtraxx website suggests that the Light is for 0-6-0 switchers, consolidations, narrow guage, etc. while the Medium version is for Pacific, Mikado, Hudson and other larger engines.
I always listen to the soundfiles before I buy the sound-decoders. I use the S-Traxx medium steam for my 2-8-0, as I thought that it sounded more right to me. And after listening to the originals it isn´t so far off the mark.
To get the best sound a baffle is a must. You can buy plastic boxs designed for most speakers. I make my own out of 0.040' styrene as it allows me to build them to fit the tender I am installing the speaker in. Using the tender for a baffle does not always work that well. The tender has to be sealed for the best results. Speaker choice is also important. Try and choose one with a wide frequency range that will fit the tender. I try to avoid using the round speakers as they are usually rated at less than a half watt and never seem to sound that great. I only use them when nothing else fits like in my brass CNR ten wheeler I am rebuilding and installing soound in. The tender is small and a round speaker was the only option.
An example of one of my custom speaker boxes can be found here.
http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1864
Wayne Reid
Well I decided to pull out the High Bass speaker and go with a standard 1.1" speaker instead. I bought one of the Soundtraxx kits and used that as an enclosure. The quality of the sound definitely went up, so did the volume, so I had to turn that down by about half with the enclosure installed. I also set the reverb to the whistle setting and the EQ to the 1-2" speaker setting.
It did clear up the whistles ok, but I still don't like them. I think I will end up dumping the light decoder and going with the medium, which to me has some better whistles to choose from. But, thanks everyone for the help, and the simple snap together enclosure made a difference.