NorthCoast RRI like sound, but I only have 1 locomotive....I often turn it off...I like it when it is working the yard. Some of you guys sound like some old timers! I don't have a land line in my home....next you all will be talking about how y'all miss the rotary dial! And what's wrong with a type writer! Luddites?
Lol!! Rotary dials... I haven't thought about those in years! I do remember party lines, all the younger folks are going what the heck is a party line. But nowadays I like all the newest technology. Next year, the good Lord willing I'm getting an iPhone and I'm going to text the devil out of my grandkids.
I like sound on my locos AND I like the mute button. I like big diesels more than I like big steam and I'll be 70 in September. There I said it! I'm out of the closet and it feels good!
Jarrell
First off, I'm not old at all compared to many on this forum, I'm 55. Second, I'm not tech shy at all (definition of Luddite). I was programing some of the first industrial computers used for machine control in the early 80's - long before most others ever touched a computer.
BUT, I don't "settle" for poor quality just because others do. Listening to music on ear buds or 1" speakers may suit you but it sounds like crap to me. I have been designing HiFi speakers since the 1970's and many people have said my designs sound better than some of truly high end products made over the years.
If you think onboard sound in HO sounds good, then it is OK for you. That does not mean that by any scientific measure that it is good sound. Neither is your cell phone.
I have a stereo/suround sound system, 1700 vinyl records and 800 music CD's that will rock your world when it comes to sound quality - And many of those records sound better than their CD versions.
You are most welcome to keep all the Ipods and such - I prefer quality sound or none at all.
Sheldon
ATLANTIC CENTRAL And, I will concede, that reasonable effects can be had on HO layouts where only one loco operates at a time and the layout is designed, operated and viewed in an intimate style, such as a shelf layout of a short line. But a room full of those things on a large layout with 4-8 trains moving and operators trying to communicate with each other - no thank you - there is no volume setting low enough except OFF. And based on a number of replies to this thread reguarding operating sessions and sound, I am far from being alone in this view.
And, I will concede, that reasonable effects can be had on HO layouts where only one loco operates at a time and the layout is designed, operated and viewed in an intimate style, such as a shelf layout of a short line.
But a room full of those things on a large layout with 4-8 trains moving and operators trying to communicate with each other - no thank you - there is no volume setting low enough except OFF. And based on a number of replies to this thread reguarding operating sessions and sound, I am far from being alone in this view.
I will wholeheartedly agree with you there, Sheldon. An entire room full of sound decoders would be pretty obnoxious.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Edited
ATLANTIC CENTRAL BUT, I don't "settle" for poor quality just because others do. Listening to music on ear buds or 1" speakers may suit you but it sounds like crap to me. If you think onboard sound in HO sounds good, then it is OK for you. That does not mean that by any scientific measure that it is good sound. Neither is your cell phone. You are most welcome to keep all the Ipods and such - I prefer quality sound or none at all. Sheldon
BUT, I don't "settle" for poor quality just because others do. Listening to music on ear buds or 1" speakers may suit you but it sounds like crap to me.
Sheldon is dead right on the sound thing. I do like my sound Loco's, but often find myself cringing. Some of us have tin ears while others myself included can get irritated by anything that is off.
I will often tune my Guitar while I am in the middle of a song playing and people just cannot believe I can do that. I also have two good quality speaker sets for listening to music. One set is for listening to things like the Berlin, London and Chicago Symphonies and other acoustical music. The other is for more modern music that contains a lot of plugged in instruments.
Some people just hear music and others listen to it.
A good mechanic is often the one with a good ear.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
tstage ATLANTIC CENTRAL And, I will concede, that reasonable effects can be had on HO layouts where only one loco operates at a time and the layout is designed, operated and viewed in an intimate style, such as a shelf layout of a short line. But a room full of those things on a large layout with 4-8 trains moving and operators trying to communicate with each other - no thank you - there is no volume setting low enough except OFF. And based on a number of replies to this thread reguarding operating sessions and sound, I am far from being alone in this view. I will wholeheartedly agree with you there, Sheldon. An entire room full of sound decoders would be pretty obnoxious. Tom
Tom, this is just another aspect of what I am always saying about different people having different modeling goals that are often best served by different approaches - DC vs DCC, Sound vs no sound, signaling vs no signaling, continuous vs point to point, lots of staging vs no staging, double deck vs single deck.
There is no one perfect layout formula, so there is no one answer for everyone - one size does NOT fit all.
My goals are big time operation, the broad view of a medium sized piece of a big system, not the nitty gritty of one loco and its crew.
Regarding how sound fits into my goals, for a layout like mine, I can play some train sounds as back ground noise on GOOD speakers and likely achieve a better overall effect than onboard sound.
With a fleet of over 125 locos, and given the primary goals, sound is simply a non starter for me.
BATMAN One set is for listening to things like the Berlin, London and Chicago Symphonies and other acoustical music....
One set is for listening to things like the Berlin, London and Chicago Symphonies and other acoustical music....
Brent,
You REALLY need to start listening to the Cleveland Orchestra......Really!
jacon12 NorthCoast RRI like sound, but I only have 1 locomotive....I often turn it off...I like it when it is working the yard. Some of you guys sound like some old timers! I don't have a land line in my home....next you all will be talking about how y'all miss the rotary dial! And what's wrong with a type writer! Luddites? Lol!! Rotary dials... I haven't thought about those in years! I do remember party lines, all the younger folks are going what the heck is a party line. But nowadays I like all the newest technology. Next year, the good Lord willing I'm getting an iPhone and I'm going to text the devil out of my grandkids. I like sound on my locos AND I like the mute button. I like big diesels more than I like big steam and I'll be 70 in September. There I said it! I'm out of the closet and it feels good! Jarrell
Thanks for catching that to be a joke! And, I agree with you on all fronts...except the 'I'm 70' part!
Congrats on the milestone! I mean the iphone not the birthday!
Isn't it great that manufacturers offer locomotives either with or without sound!
jacon12 Isn't it great that manufacturers offer locomotives either with or without sound! Jarrell
Yes, especially when they offer the non sound ones without DCC or with easily removable decoders that sell well on Ebay!
jacon12locomotives either with or without sound
Russell
tstage BATMAN One set is for listening to things like the Berlin, London and Chicago Symphonies and other acoustical music.... Brent, You REALLY need to start listening to the Cleveland Orchestra......Really! Tom
csxns jacon12locomotives either with or without soundWhy does Broadway Limited not offer the AC6000CW without sound.
Because Broadway Limited is only interested in selling trains to one half of the market, despite the fact that every non sound DC locomotive they have ever made sold out in short order - with the possible exception of the first run of PCM F3's.
But they were unpopular because they had jumpers between the A and B units - who in their right mind wants that? But for $50 a set on closeout I can rewire them.
Broadway founded themselves on the DCC and sound thing, and have yet to understand the HO market well enough to see the error in that. After all the guy running it was an O Gauge guy for a long time - much like his rival at MTH.
ATLANTIC CENTRALtrains to one half of the market
I'm 50/50 about liking sound. I like the reproductions of the horn, bells, and whistle sounds...but I think the small electronics to a poor job of reproducing the deep mechanical noises made by engines and motors etc..
And I agree with Sheldon about perspective and distance, especially in the modern wide cab six axle era, where they are being built with pollution reduction, including noise pollution, in mind. The noise of the cars' wheels on the tracks and their couplers make far more noise than locomotive outputs.
Hey, maybe what we really need is sound equipped rolling stock! Squeals and loud clackity clacks and such. Cool.
So, who will be the first company to produce the first $125 sound equipped boxcar?
And no, I'm not kidding.
- Douglas
Sound caused me to change scales and finally make a long-term commitment to this hobby. It's fully worth it too, and I think those who bypass it are missing out on a grand dimension of MRing.
To the OP: congrats and enjoy, friend!
Stu
Streamlined steam, oh, what a dream!!
I don't normally get involved in debates over how good sound is since the hobby in any scale but real revenue 1:1 service makes it all moot anyway. Agree, the larger the 'container', the more likely it is to be able to accommodate sounds of higher fidelity, unsuitable shapes and materials aside.
However, to me, as a guy who enjoys watching his trains in a mockup, which we call a layout, that doesn't strain credibility overmuch, I would equate soundless scale locomotives to those same locomotives running silently on tracks without a grain of ballast. Something's missing, but I can't put my finger on it.
Crandell
Wow! Well stated Northcoast. You posted a very fitting thought that I should have as well but held back, thinking that I would stir the pot.
The honest and unenthusiastic statements made on this thread regarding onboard sound are likely accurate, but the point is that the creator of this thread was excited and wanted to share that excitement with us! I wonder if he feels that some of the wind was taken out of his sails.
Similar to the scenario where a classic car fan purchases an early 1970s Chevy Impala he'd been gung-ho about. He excitedly tells his peers about it........and is immediately told by some of them why they wouldn't own one. They include accurate information regarding the poor gas mileage of a 350ci engine in a heavy car, the lack of safety features, the limitations of a 3-speed automatic transmission, required tuneups, yada-yada etc. Within minutes the smile is gone, he's thinking hard about the limitations, still feels good about his purchase but now it's become "no big deal", and regrets even saying anything about it.
Myself included, we have to be careful that we not rain on someone else's parade. I've caught myself a few times when friends of mine purchased model railroad rolling stock or products that to me "have limitations". Instead I focus on the positive aspects and potential. I ate humble pie when I saw what a modeler did with a 70s Model Power E7 and made it as nice looking as a BLI unit.
NorthCoast RRThis OP was excited about his new sound loco....and now I feel bad for him...bunch if folks telling him how poor it sounds in 1" speaker. Congrats buddy, enjoy your hobby!
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
selector I don't normally get involved in debates over how good sound is since the hobby in any scale but real revenue 1:1 service makes it all moot anyway. Agree, the larger the 'container', the more likely it is to be able to accommodate sounds of higher fidelity, unsuitable shapes and materials aside. However, to me, as a guy who enjoys watching his trains in a mockup, which we call a layout, that doesn't strain credibility overmuch, I would equate soundless scale locomotives to those same locomotives running silently on tracks without a grain of ballast. Something's missing, but I can't put my finger on it. Crandell
Crandell,
Just as you feel sound is as necessary as scenery, I feel that signals, close coupled passenger cars with working diaphragms, and train lengths that are at least representative are necessary to fill in that "something missing".
Yet a great many people in this hobby are completely indifferent to all three of those elements and number of others I find "necessary to not strain credibility". I have repeatedly acknowledged the virtues of sound for some types of layout themes, even despite its poor sound quality in smaller scales. But like a number of others who have commented here, in situations of large layouts designed for prototypical operations of mulitple trains at the same time, the laws of physics make onboard sound problematic at best.
I see real trains every day from distances of 1/8 to 1/4 mile away - I can hardly hear them over the other environmental sounds - 1/8 mile in HO is 7.5 feet - not very far awy in my 22 x 40 layout room. In fact what you can hear from a distance in real life is exactly what model sound lacks - Bass. It takes 10" woofers, two lb magnets and 1.5 cu ft enclosures to get reasonable bass reproduction in my living room.
I'm building a large layout for long realistic "looking" trains. While the viewer can get close to them, the viewer and/or operator is not always inside the "intimate" distance where the sound is attention grabbing.
Here a re a few other things that I feel strain credibility :
85' passenger cars on 30" radius curves
too much weathering - not enough weathering
spaghetti bowl track plans
toylike wisps of ocassional smoke from steam locos
crossing gates/lights that do not actually work as the train goes by
CTC panels on computer screens for layouts that model 1950
Just to name a few - yet a number of my closest friends are just fine with these things and have wonderful layouts.
Again, we all have different goes and we all set different priorities in meeting those goals.
LOL
Why feel bad for the OP?
He is happy with sound, so what does he care if some don't like it.
If you go back and re-read his initial post, he opened it up to debate. He didn't say he liked it, he didn't say he didn't like it. He just said that he acquired it.
In fact, he came back later and said that he turned to volume down because it was annoying. Yet, he loves sound and wants to get more locos with sound. Good for him.
I have plenty of locos with sound. I like it, it is not always accurate, it gets annoying when too many locos are making noise, and the fidelity leaves a lot to be desired.
I'm not hurt or offended by anything that anyone has to say for or against sound. Neither should the OP.
Rich
Alton Junction
richhotrain LOL Why feel bad for the OP? He is happy with sound, so what does he care if some don't like it. If you go back and re-read his initial post, he opened it up to debate. He didn't say he liked it, he didn't say he didn't like it. He just said that he acquired it. In fact, he came back later and said that he turned to volume down because it was annoying. Yet, he loves sound and wants to get more locos with sound. Good for him. I have plenty of locos with sound. I like it, it is not always accurate, it gets annoying when too many locos are making noise, and the fidelity leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not hurt or offended by anything that anyone has to say for or against sound. Neither should the OP. Rich
Well said Rich.
The thread has turned a bit into discussing WHY people may or may not like sound. That is valuable input for any reader as long as the facts that are presented are accurate and sincere. If they are not accurate, that gets sorted out in the discussion as well.
If the OP has just purchased a sound locomotive, good for him. As he runs it, he may, or may not, find it more or less likable as time passes.
If there are physical limitations to the quality of deep tones that can be produced from a small speaker, then possibly no manufacturer can overcome that obstacle. I consider it a service that some members point that out, if it is in fact true.
That info may prevent a reader from just assuming they need to buy some other manufacturers product, if they desire an even higher quality sound than what they have. It may not be possible.
I think the forum works best when meaningful discussions take place about model railroad related topics, so that everybody can make more informed decisions.. I find atta-boy comments rather meaningless. But if others like to participate in that kind of thread, fine with me.
NorthCoast RRDoughless....Athearn does. Its a refrigerator car. Not sure the price.
I think sound decoder equipped rolling stock is a legitimate product. My previous post about it was written with tongue-in-cheek, but in all seriousness, the product seems viable to me.
If most of the noise you hear from a 1:1 train comes from the squeals and clacks of the rolling stock, then maybe sound equipped rolling stock is the next step in sound products. And it could be viable for several reasons:
1) No running gear or weights taking up valuable space, thereby allowing larger speakers and a generally better sound system to be installed in the box car.
2) Slots in the floor of the car, unseen generally, deliver the sound through the bottom of the car, which is where the squealing takes place. Unlike a sound equipped locomtive, where the speaker delivers the bottom noises like wheel brakes and the top noises like exhaust notes from the same location.
3) Set the car decoder to match the speed setting of the loco. Sqeals and clacks increase as the speed steps of the loco are increased.
4) What would it take, a rather inexpensive 1 function decoder?
5) You would only need one or two cars per train to get the effect.
Maybe even have a truck wired in some way so the squeals get louder as the truck turns sharper.
Possibly even have the sound of a door or latches closing for switching operations.
If MSRP were about $100, not $500, I could see many modelers buying a couple.
For me modeling is creating the illusion of the real world, not necessarily a reproduction.
Therefore sound such as it is is fine with me. I've spent precious little time hearing the real thing so in my case I don't know the difference between the real world and my make believe one.
For me it is less realistic to have silent running locos than those with sound.
When I bought my first stero the "real good ones" were going for a $1,000 or more. I bought one for a couple hundred and it sounds as good to me as the more expensive ones.
To the OP, as it is often said, it's your railroad so do what makes you happy.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up