The engine sounds for most decoders can be muted, using the f8 key. Often when you press the f8 key to turn on engine sounds then a startup sequence will play and when you press it again to mute the sound a shut down sequence will play. On most modern sound decoders the f8 only mute engine sounds and the horn, bell, etc can still be played. However some decoders f8 will mute all sounds and the horn, bell, etc will not play when the engine is muted. If a locomotive is not muted it will generally begin engine sounds as soon as it recieves power.
Today the most common sound decoders are variations of the ESU LokSound Select or the SoundTraxx Tsunami, but there are also other manufacturers including TCS, Digitrax and NCE.
Regards, Isaac
I model my railroad and you model yours! I model my way and you model yours!
Some decoders remain silent until you give the decoder its first speed command. An example is the Paragon series from Broadway Limited Imports. You can power up the rails in DCC, but any BLI motors will remain inert and silent. Acquire any one or two addresses, give them a first speed step, and they'll immediatly come alive. All others that I have, Tsunami, QSI, and LokSound, will make sounds as soon as the rails are powered, but it's a bit more complicated, especially with the QSI.
To explain, you CAN mute sounds by pressing F8 on pretty much all decoders except some early LokSounds. You enter a tunnel, hit F8, sounds die off, and you hit F8 again when you know the locomotive is about to emerge.
QSI's, though, are unique. You can go into a CV and configure F8 so that it doesn't go entirely muted. You can set it so that it only halves the current volume set in the volumes previously, or reduce it even more, all the way to fully mute. Quite handy if you want some low diesel or steam sounds, but not competing with the engine active on your throttle at the time. Annoying it can be.
Also with QSI, they have the feature where you can double-press F9 and place the decoder in a sleep feature. Three double-taps on F9 puts the decoder into what I have called a coma. To get it out once again, you must double-tap F6. I mention this because, if you were somehow to end up with a usable QSI, and forget that you removed the locomotive to store it for a year or so, and went to play with it, you'd wonder if the decoder had died during storage. But, it's just in that deep coma, and you'd want to have slipped a piece of paper into the box reminding you of the requirement to double-tap F6 to get it to respond to commands.
Any current sound decoder is going to be a pretty decent unit. Often the installation, especially of the speaker, is what makes the discernible difference. The best on the market right now are the LokSounds, TCS Wow, and the Sountraxx Tsunami II. It comes down to the usual factors, price, availability, reputation, ease of installation, reliability, and how it actually sounds. The latter should include considerations of the quality of realistic and appropriate sound files for the locomotive.
I have 2 BB athearn units purchased 1999-2000(SW1000, GP38). I converted to DCC with digitrax decoders right after purchase. I would now like to try sound. But have a couple questions.
1) Does the engine sound start up as soon as the loco address is entered into the DCC system or does it need to be activated?
2) If it doesn't start immediately can you start up the sound with the engine already in motion? Say it coming out of staging and you don't want to hear it until it enters the actual layout.
3) Any reccomendations on Decoders for these Loco's
These are probably really basic but I don't know. Thanks for all the advice I know I will get.