I have found that with Wow steam decoders, the bass-heavy "heavy steam" chuff sound does tend to distort. On the engines I have Wow steam decoders in, I've found using a different chuff sound (like medium steam or light steam) works better.
Thanks for the suggestion. I will check, thought i had it secured well enough. The distortion is only when I advance the throttle. This is wow steam btw.
Distorted sound could just be the speaker not being seated properly, or not being in an enclosure. Sometimes the speaker can 'rattle' the plastic of the tender or diesel engine body. I recently installed sound in a Stewart F3 using a 1" speaker facing down in an enclosure. It sounded bad until I put some strips of soft paper towel over it and around the sides so the engine body couldn't buzz.
Well this became a frustrating project. First up, put a new Wow sound decoder and Scale Sound speaker in a LL P2K E6 loco, runs great and sounds excellent.
Next up a LL Heritage Proto 0-8-0 switcher, it already had a Wow sound decoder but the speaker sounded distorted when advancing the loco's speed. I installed a new Scale Sound speaker in this loco. Made sure it was programmed to 50% volume as instructed and following the directions as given above.
Test ran and it still has the distorted sound when advancing the throttle / speed. GRRRR. Now the lights don't work. Try again another evening.
The only thing i can see doing to test the decoder is to swap it out for another.
The explanation in Ed's link above explains it quite well. For some CVs you can't enter a number directly to that CV. You have to enter a value into a series of CVs in a particular order.
TCS has a "Programming Tool" that's very helpful (link below). In your case, under "select" in the first drop down you would select "Volume Control". Then in the next drop down select "Global Volume Adjustment" (that's what TCS calls the master volume).
A slider will pop up, which you can adjust from 0-100 for the volume you want.
The chart on the right will then tell you what to enter in CVs 201-202-203-204. So for example to set volume to 50%, you would enter 201=4; 202=10; 203=0; 204=50.
https://drupal.tcsdcc.com/4CVDieselV4
gmpullman Look at CV 204 for global volume, range is 0-100. Page 25 here (for Diesel) https://www.tcsdcc.com/_files/angry gran/559cd7_dfb841e185196092ef121643.pdf I use WOW steam and Scale Sound speakers exclusively, now. I never had a problem with excessive volume right after a new installation and I use Decoder Pro for my initial setups. I'm not a big fan of Audio Assist but I'm starting to get used to it. Read about indexed CVs here: https://docs.tcsdcc.com/wiki/WOWDiesel_Version_4_Indexed_CV%27s Good Luck, Ed
Look at CV 204 for global volume, range is 0-100.
Page 25 here (for Diesel)
https://www.tcsdcc.com/_files/angry gran/559cd7_dfb841e185196092ef121643.pdf
I use WOW steam and Scale Sound speakers exclusively, now. I never had a problem with excessive volume right after a new installation and I use Decoder Pro for my initial setups. I'm not a big fan of Audio Assist but I'm starting to get used to it.
Read about indexed CVs here:
https://docs.tcsdcc.com/wiki/WOWDiesel_Version_4_Indexed_CV%27s
Good Luck, Ed
Thank you for providing additional information and the links. But, Can you explain how indexed CVs work in WOWDiesel Version 4 decoders?
Thank you Ed.
https://www.tcsdcc.com/_files/ugd/559cd7_dfb8199e41ca41e185196092ef121643.pdf
I am installing a TCS Wow sound decoder with a Scale Sound speaker. Scale Sound instructions say Wow sound decoders default to maximum volume so before installing the speaker to reduce to master volume of the decoder to 50%.
How do i do that? I have looked through TCS website and see no instructions for a CV setting that adjusts the master volume, other than Audio Assist. I can not use audio assist because the speaker is not hooked up.
Any assistance is appreciated.