OK, I been busy typing today. Saw a ad for the MRC Sounder, sound only decoder. Has MRC line gotten any better as far a quality? Not talking sound quality as much as will they keep working?
Sorry I am being a pest today.
Ken
I hate Rust
I have two Sounders, one in a Kato SD-70 and the other in a Spectrum 2-6-6-2 (both HO). I find both of them work well. You do need to be sure to get the "regular" decoder the way you want it, and then lock it so you can later program just the Sounder. Otherwise there are some CVs that both use and can cause some CVs to change when you didn't want them to.
Here's a fairly low-quality video I did with the steam engine, if you ignore the grainy picture (and the goofy premise; it was a "for fun" Easter project) you can get a pretty good idea of the steam sound.
They seem to be a mixed bag. I purchased a diesel Sounder several years ago and all it would do is make a clicking noise every few seconds.
After contacting MRC I was advised to send it back to them for repair and they would waive the normal $25 service fee since it was dead on arrival,
When I got it back it now gets too hot to touch after being on for less than one minute. I'll never install it because it would melt the locomotive shell.
I also will never trust another MRC decoder no matter how exaggerated their advertising claims become.
First thank you for the reply's.
On locking the decoder, how do you program it? Out of the engine?
Getting to hot, well there is a reason I am asking for feedback. Why did you not contact MRC again?
Hi Ken. I bought a MRC sound decoder (1611) and it only worked for a short time. sent it back and got a worse one and returned it, did not work at all. Tried to trouble shoot it on three different layouts and all my friends came to the same conclusion as me. That MRC is the less expensive and noted by several forums to have problems, when adding the shipping on can get into an MRC that cost more then the upper ended products, not counting the hours of frustration.
All three of us gave it an honest try on 3 different DCC systems. However I imagine MRC will have a fire sale on them LOL
Owell live and learn.
cudaken Getting too hot, well there is a reason I am asking for feedback. Why did you not contact MRC again? Ken
Getting too hot, well there is a reason I am asking for feedback. Why did you not contact MRC again?
The cost of postage to send it back more than once and have them mess it up even more on the second attempt at repair, was more than I'm willing to tolerate. It's much simpler to just chalk it up to experience and NEVER buy another MRC decoder of any type.
The 'repairs' they performed in replacing several surface-mount components look like something a kindergarten child would do better. And it's still going to sound horrible when compared to a LokSound Select, Tsunami, or QSI..
If you are looking for a cheap sound decoder I think digitraxx is usually pretty respectable and they can easily be reprogrammed. When given a preference I will go with Loksound mostly for their start up / shut down control on the F8 key rather than auto starting like tsunami's.