sound decoder and speakers?


Y

yard master

Member
What would be a good quality sound decoder for an Athearn 9-44CW loco? Also how difficult is it to mount speakers in a loco? Ive never installed either (decoder or speakers) so please take that into consideration.

Thanks Jay
 
Hands down - a Loksound number 73440 - GE 7FDL 16 cylinder with their matching 16mm X 35mm 4 ohm speaker. I've installed at least a dozen of them and they sound great !

There is plenty of room to install both the decoder and speaker in your engine. Just make sure the speaker is sealed air tight into its enclosure, else the sound will be severely diminished.

Mark.
 
I hope that's what Intermountain have installed in the ES44AC that just arrived today, will be putting it on my little test track shortly, along with the Kato SD80Mac, also Loksound. Am I in for a treat??
 
yard master said:
What would be a good quality sound decoder for an Athearn 9-44CW loco? Also how difficult is it to mount speakers in a loco? Ive never installed either (decoder or speakers) so please take that into consideration.
Click to expand...
In my opinion installing speakers is the most difficult of any model railroad project. The best speakers in the world will sound poorly if installed incorrectly. Likewise some really cheapo speakers can sound pretty good with a good enclosure properly installed. Don't loose heart. Many of the newer speakers come pre-enclosed which make it much easier than it used to be. With those it takes away all the math of computing the proper size of the enclosure, so I would suggest looking for one of those. The hardest part then becomes getting the sound to the outside of the shell. Unfortunately I am not familiar with your dash-9 so I cannot make any specific recommendations.
 
Sound is subjective, and as Iron Horseman alludes, some installations work better than others. I have had all types of decoders except for MRC and TCS. They all sound marvellous, but you need to have a good technical installation, and the speaker needs to be tuned. Allowing for variances in the recordings and quality of sound files between variants, they all sound darn good. You just have to find the best sound files, but in my opinion you can get excellent sound from all modern sound decoders.
 
tootnkumin, I just purchased a new Intermountain ES44AC and it came with a Tsunami in it. Somewhere in the process, Intermountain switched from ESU Loksound to Soundtraxx Tsunami. Maybe you'll get an older loco with the ESU.


Steve Rowe

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk and disturbing many electrons in the process.
 
Trainmaster said:
tootnkumin, I just purchased a new Intermountain ES44AC and it came with a Tsunami in it. Somewhere in the process, Intermountain switched from ESU Loksound to Soundtraxx Tsunami. Maybe you'll get an older loco with the ESU.


Steve Rowe

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk and disturbing many electrons in the process.
Click to expand...

It's the other way around. Intermountain has gone from Tsunami TO Loksound. If you got one with a Tsunami in it, it would have been the tail end of the last Tsunami decoders. The latest releases DO have Loksound decoders in them

Mark.
 
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