Looked on Tony's Website (www.tonystrains.com) and it's available now for around the $40 mark. Available in the UK from Bromsgrove Models (www.bromsgrovemodels.co.uk) for about £35. There's one on my birthday list already!!
As for the DCC ready loco, Digitrax have an 8-pin variant for the same price - SDN144PS.
Ian
I'm puzzled by seeing those at Tony's. The Digitrax site doesn't even show them yet. Neither does Walthers. I would call and confirm availability before placing an order.
I would, of course, love to know how well these things work. IMHO, the Soundbug units are OK, but nothing great. The SFX0416 sound-only decoders have very low maximum volume, and can barely be heard if other sound units are operating in the room. If these new decoders don't work any better than the SFX0416, they're not worth it despite the low price.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
These are EXACTLY the same as the Soundbug, just with the motor decoder integrated so you don't have to deal with multiple. The sound programming will be exactly the same - *** near impossible for the average person. Unless you are happy with the default effects and just want to swap sound samples - but the default effects are severely lacking. People who CAN figure out the PIC programming have been able to get notching and other effects, bt unless these people decide to share for free the results of a lot of hard work, there will be only limited sounds and features. There's been a long discussion about this on the Digitrax Sound Yahoo group. AJ as usual had a great enginering idea but those often don;t translate well to the real world and paying customer. You can't seel a sound project, because even when you alter the programming to add the notching, there's still proprietary Digitrax code. ANd you can't expect peopel to spend weeks and more coding this stuff to just up and give it away for free. Recording good sounds also takes an investment in equipment and time and usually some sort of 'in' because I can only imagine what they woudl say if I walked into the office of the nearest railroad with recorder in hand and asked to record some of their locos from various positions with the hood doors open so I could get the prime mover, main generator, air compressor, and other sounds. And that still leaves out where to get sounds of locos that aren't running anywhere these days. The user-provided model just isn't realistic when it comes to somethign that takes so much time and effort and skill to generate. Really only 1 way to get serious about this - hire someone with the required skills and go out and collect 'official' recordings to use int he decoders. However this would likely require the decoders to cost more to cover the costs of the person or persons going all over the country collecting and editing recordings.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Oh, and to get proper volume on the other decoders, put an 8 ohm speaker on it insteadof the 32. It's the same amplifier circuit as the Soundbug and my SOundbug came with an 8 ohm speaker and is MORE than loud enough. Maybe not loud enough for the toy train crowd who wants peopel walking by OUTSIDE to be able to hear the loco but plenty loud so as to require settign the volume down so it's not too loud. Not sure why they alternate with 32 and 8 ohm speakers, when the decoder can drive an 8 ohm. Cheapest speaker of the week or something.
rrinker Oh, and to get proper volume on the other decoders, put an 8 ohm speaker on it insteadof the 32. It's the same amplifier circuit as the Soundbug and my SOundbug came with an 8 ohm speaker and is MORE than loud enough. Maybe not loud enough for the toy train crowd who wants peopel walking by OUTSIDE to be able to hear the loco but plenty loud so as to require settign the volume down so it's not too loud. Not sure why they alternate with 32 and 8 ohm speakers, when the decoder can drive an 8 ohm. Cheapest speaker of the week or something. --Randy
Every Digitrax sound decoder I have purchased in the past 2 years has had an 8 ohm speaker. This includes Sound Bugs other SFX decoders.
Engineer Jeff NS Nut Visit my layout at: http://www.thebinks.com/trains/
Engineer Jeff, what is your experience with the resulting sound level?
Alan
Co-owner of the proposed CT River Valley RR (HO scale) http://home.comcast.net/~docinct/CTRiverValleyRR/
The Soundbug is definitely louder than the SFX0416, into the same speaker. I'm not going to take anything apart to find out, but my recollection is also that all the Digitrax sound decoders I've put in have 8-ohm speakers.
While the sound quality may not be the best, and the ability to modify the "sound projects" is limited, these are still the only decoders on the market (that I know of) which really give the user any ability to customize the unit for engines not supported by the manufacturer.
Looking at $50 for a Soundbug and $25 more (MSRP) for a 165-series decoder, though, is a lot for what most of us feel is a second-rate sound system. However, with the $50 price tag for sound-plus-motor, and an even lower street price, these units start to be very attractive as "fleet" decoders with sound. You might not use them for your favorite locomotives, but they make a lot of sense for someone who is equipping an F7 ABBA consist.