richhotrain ATLANTIC CENTRAL Bayfield Transfer Railway If this works, I'm hoping in a few years that "Rolling Thunder Addons" will be available for other systems, or perhas the "Rolling Thunder Decoder" available separately.I'm frankly still not happy with the bass response of speakers you can fit into an HO locomotive. No speaker inside an HO scale locomotive will ever produce very good bass response - it defies the laws of physics. Never ever? I wouldn't bet on that, given where technology and miniaturization has taken us in the last few years. Rich
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Bayfield Transfer Railway If this works, I'm hoping in a few years that "Rolling Thunder Addons" will be available for other systems, or perhas the "Rolling Thunder Decoder" available separately.I'm frankly still not happy with the bass response of speakers you can fit into an HO locomotive. No speaker inside an HO scale locomotive will ever produce very good bass response - it defies the laws of physics.
Bayfield Transfer Railway If this works, I'm hoping in a few years that "Rolling Thunder Addons" will be available for other systems, or perhas the "Rolling Thunder Decoder" available separately.I'm frankly still not happy with the bass response of speakers you can fit into an HO locomotive.
If this works, I'm hoping in a few years that "Rolling Thunder Addons" will be available for other systems, or perhas the "Rolling Thunder Decoder" available separately.I'm frankly still not happy with the bass response of speakers you can fit into an HO locomotive.
No speaker inside an HO scale locomotive will ever produce very good bass response - it defies the laws of physics.
Never ever? I wouldn't bet on that, given where technology and miniaturization has taken us in the last few years.
Rich
Rich,
Creating bass response requires moving a specific volume of air. As the speaker diameter decreases, it must have a longer stroke to move similar volumes. Bass notes require high volumes of air depending on room size, conditions, etc.
A 1" specker would need a stroke like a small piston, of an inch or more, to even start to get near the real bass region. That kind of stroke would introduce considerable distortion to both the bass note and the higher frequencies being reproduced.
Headphones are only able to reproduce bass notes witrh small speakers because of the small volume of air between the speaker and your ear - in room, different rules apply.
Yes - never. Even with "bass tube" or labyrinth technolgy, the length and cross section of that labyrinth requires way more cubic inches than the the biggest HO locos whole volume.
Real bass, 60 Hz or below, in a normal room, still requires a cubic foot or more of cabinet enclosure.
Sheldon
Alton Junction
The fact that Rolling Thunder and Surroundtraxx exist suggests that the manufacturers have realized all along that only one segment of the market would be happy with "on board" sound in the smaller scales.
Sound is very subjective, highly subject to room and layout conditions, and hard to "scale down" especially in scales as small as HO or N.
One of my other hobbies is designing Hi Fi speaker systems - so as of yet, no onboard model system in HO lives up to my standards, and I'm not sure any will every justify the cost in my view.
I have long suggested that "generic" layout based sounds would be more effective than onboard sounds - but as of yet I have not had the luxury of time to test that theory.....yet the industry slowly moves in similar directions.......
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
My Rolling Thunder receiver just arrived a few minutes ago. I have the booklet in front of me and there is a page describing how the receiver "locks-on" to the first available locomotive until it moves out of range after which the next available locomotive will begin playing through the subwoofer.You CAN dedicate one subwoofer to one locomotive using channels (there are 29 available) and setting the channel using CV 212 to a value between 1 - 29.You can also increase the transmitter strength from the locomotive using CV 213 from lowest (value 240) to highest (128)Multiple receivers can be spaced around a larger layout. You can set the range of channels that the receiver scans if you don't need many channels the scanning will perform faster with a lower number of channels selected.The receiver has a DCC address of 1 and can be programmed using ops mode programming. It says there are a number of options to "fine tune" in the receiver that can be changed with CVs. You can use BLI's DC Master to make changes using the bell and horn buttons to step th`rough the CVs.You can dedicate the receiver to one locomotive by setting receiver CV 142 & 143 to the channel of the locomotive.It looks like BLI has really done their homework on this machine! I couldn't wait for a future Paragon 3 locomotive so I ordered a Pennsy L1s so I can try this bad boy out.Regards, Ed
For diesel sound, see if this link works . . . .
http://www.broadway-limited.com/rollingthunder.aspx
I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find any now.
I don't own a steam engine, but I found the Rolling Thunder sound to be impressive. I would love to hear how a diesel sounds with the system.
Hello Modelers
For anyone interested in hearing the recent innovation from Broadway Limited, James (jlwii) has just posted a review of the Rolling Thunder/Paragon 3 system.
I have the receiver on order from TrainWorld and I bought my own sub-woofer so I will be able to play with it soon.
I'm sure some modelers will love it and others will have a much different opinion but I'm sure everyone has to agree that the technology behind this system is worth a close look!
Enjoy, Ed