Dear Jonathan,
As a part time Buckeye (class 70'), welcome aboard. I was your online order
last night and would like to comment. I have put DCC sound in several SW1s.
This is not a service like what we do for the 2-8-0, F units or other switchers
(SW8/9 & NW2) as it takes a bit of time to place the hi-base speaker. I started
with a SW1 body and cut away most of the sides. I glued 300 grit sand paper to
the inside. I then cut the largest dia. orange pill vial that will fit into
1/8" (I think it was that height) tubes. Using the body/sandpaper assy. as a
tool, I sand down one edge until I get a "vee" that will fit tight onto the top
of the hood. That's the hard part. I have intalled Tsunami's and revolution
"U"s this way. I make sure I cut the shrink wrap at the jst connector for the
speaker for easy removal if I ever need to. If you have the NMRA medium plug on
the decoder you can just plug it into the socket pcb. Other than the speaker,
it is a very easy install. To me, my SW1 is as loud as our other engines and I
do not think I would want it any louder for my basement operations. One thing I
have learned about sound, it is as much about the enclosure as anything else.
A word about sound. After trying to match prototype colors for our models, it
is very hard to make everyone happy that and sound is the same way. Everyone's
memory is a bit different and trying to match all is impossible. But, we have
lots of different sound options for our products. They ALL have there
advantages and limitations. For our beloved SW1 the first problem is that I am
unaware of a true SW1 prime mover being currently offered. For me, QSI came the
closest with NW2 sound files, but we all know that they do sound a bit different
due to the extra cylinders of the prime mover. This is the same reason why the
F unit prime mover will sound a little different than the NW2. Not everyone can
hear this difference and most do not care, but for some...
There are other difference too and I will admit when I started to listen to
sound unit I could not hear these difference, but trust me your taste can
change. For examples, when I first hear Locomatic, I thought it was the cats
meow, but at some point I could hear the difference between monophonic and
polyphonic sound. Same same is true listening to 16 vs. 32 bit sound
processors. At first it sounded just fine, but with time I could hear the
difference...
Tsunami vs. QSI rev U - Bill Clark suggested that we used these for our F7s
with Mars lights. The 1 amp Tsunami sometimes overheated in this engine.
Although the F3 and F7 were almost identical, we did up the lumens in the bulbs
as well as add the bi-color LEDs for class lights and when everything was on and
the engines were going up a grade with a good length trains they could overheat.
The higher amp rating of the "U" solved that problem. We did notice several
other difference between the two. One irritating feature of the Tsunami is at
the start of the train, the prime mover revs as soon as the engine moves, this
is not how real diesels operate with a train (Lee Johnson told me that light
engines can do this though). I asked Nancy of Soundtraxx if there was a CV that
could correct this oversight, she said no. We did discover that you could set
the brake, start the engine forward and when the prime mover had reved you can
release the brake and then the train will move. With the "U", when you push the
brake function, the trains does not stop. You have to throttle down to slow
down the train. I am looking forward to seeing and trying the new Titan, but I
am not sure what you do with a stereo sound system in an engine with only one
speaker...
As far as MRC, I am hoping their sound decoders have improved over the last
year or so. They did not have 32 bit sound the last time I talked to them. But,
I think if you listen to them side by side with 32 bit sound decoders, I think
you will quickly discover why they cost less. But, that might have changed.
They are only a few miles away from my house and one of our club members beta
tests a lot of their products.
I have not mentioned Lok sound as I have never installed these. I know there
are lots of them in our SW1 as one of our customers used to install them. That
was before he went on to be an engineering student. One feature they had that I
like was that F8 turned the sound down in steps and not either all or mute. Of
course I like the ability to download sounds like we can with the QSI and I hope
that someday, the Tsunami can do the same. As a vendor, it is much nicer to
inventory 1 item that one for each possible prime mover...
Don
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