Interesting .. the LokSound 5 micro DCC Direct looks promising but retrofitting means finding a location for the speaker ...... not an simple fit.
The main problem is the space for the speaker. Yes ... it is. Milling work on the frames sometimes means considerable weight loss.
The means to actually produce sound does not scale well... Truthfully, I have yet to hear an N scale sound decoder in a locomotive sound very good. Bells and horns are tolerable, but the diesel sound leaves a lot to be desired. It's not that the recordings (or synthesis) are not good, it is the physics of producing sound in a very small space, to be heard at a reasonable distance (even taking the same scale into consideration.) So far, I only have non-sound decoders. I plan to use JMRI's Virtual Sound Decoder (VSD), for my upcoming small (HCD) layout.
If you were to scale down the sound of an N scale-locomotive you would probably have a very quite sound. You can’t hear a prototype locomotive 1/4 mile away. Who really wants the sound of a real loco in a room? I think most are too loud. IMO
LOL! I can hear the 1:1 locomotives (without their horns) 1.5 miles away as the crow flies, from inside my house, with the double pain, energy-certified windows closed tight. And my wife says I need hearing aids! I don't want it anywhere near scale loudness, but I do want to hear a little rumble, and the frequency response should be scale-distance appropriate. You don't get that out of a less-than-dime-sized speaker unless it's in a set of ear-buds (scale distance < 4 feet.)
The corresponding resonance body is simply missing. There is simply no room for that. Which speaker has the desired quality?
Dogwood, is that question directed at me? If so, a decent hi-fi bookshelf speaker, and a sub-woofer. I have an 11" subwoofer that would work well enough, within the loudness limits established by my wife. But this is for an HCD N scale layout in a spare bedroom/office.
If you can hear a locomotive from1.5 away I would say you have super hearing. LOL. I have chased a lot of locomotives over the years & I have been able to see them way before I could hear them. Take for instance the 4014 steamer. My wife and I chased the loco out of Yuma, AZ. WE found a track that was with out anything around- when we first saw the train, I would guess it was 2 miles away, we did not hear it until; it was right on top of us- BTW that’s why they have bells and cross arms at grade crossings- just saying..
There are a lot of factors regarding ability to hear things outdoors at distance, including wind direction and speed, especially if you can hear the wind itself in your ears (masking other sounds). I'm not as familiar with the sound of a steam locomotive at speed, but I'd guess it is generally a higher frequency too. It's the high frequency sounds that I need help with (probably a hearing aid, like my wife says). The sound of those diesels 1.5 miles away, from within my house, is fairly quiet, but it is distinct. It's like a low, rumbling hum. And if I'm watching TV, or listening to music, I don't often notice the trains. I used to work in an office/lab building that had once been a warehouse, and was right behind a regional rail/truck distribution center for Home Depot. My cubicle was near the back of the building, which was but a few yards from the tracks, and we could feel the locomotives and the slack letting out or taking in as they dropped off and picked up railcars. Lots of regular, bulkhead and center-beam flat cars, and occasional box cars, delivering building materials to be warehoused and shipped by truck to local retail stores. One afternoon we heard an unusually loud rumble outside, and a couple of cars had derailed where the roadbed gave way under them. They didn't tip over or anything, but it was interesting watching them temporarily shore up the roadbed, and get the cars back on the track. Within a few weeks, they completely rebuilt that area of track and roadbed.
No speaker that will fit in an N-scale engine will reproduce the low-bass rumble of a diesel prime mover. That said, the best N-scale sound installations DO provide at least an illusion of "real" diesel sound, appropriately scaled down. For example, try this, which I think conveys the distinct cadence of an Alco prime mover pretty darn well: My own view, however, is that diesel sound is inherently boring. Who wants to listen to the rumble of a diesel for two hours during an op session? Ugh! And I CERTAINLY would not want to listen to a full-sized, full-volume diesel sound for two hours; that would produce hearing loss and a headache. The only thing that is interesting about prime mover sound is when they throttle up or throttle down. Otherwise, it's just a constant drone. I much prefer steam sounds, which I also think are inherently rendered more realistically by even the tiny speakers we use in N scale. Like this: John C.
John, Thanks for the video/sound examples. While the sounds from the small speakers definitely resemble the diesel locomotive sounds, they are still quite "tinny", missing the low frequencies (even in the horn) that the real sounds contain. The bell sounded very good. I worked in an office building adjacent to a UP industrial spur that crossed the street at the corner of our parking lot. I often parked less than 50 yards from the crossing. The locomotives' horns had a surprising amount of low frequency content. The steam sound was more realistic (not surprising, since most of the sound is the hiss of escaping steam.) The steam exhaust sound is also more complex; while the chuff cadence is accurately timed to wheel rotation, the chuff attack time is too fast for slow wheel speed. The 1:1 exhaust valves open over a perceptible duration, at speeds relative to wheel speed. They also close at a wheel-proportional rate, but by that time (at low speed) the steam pressure in the cylinder has long since equalized with atmosphere before the valve starts to close, so the duration of the audible chuff is closer to constant, and is more accurately represented. But these steam sound differences are not scale/speaker dependent, they are decoder dependent. ESU is well known for very good sound, but perhaps accurately reproducing the variable attack rate of the chuff is beyond what can be cost-effectively accomplished in a decoder today.
Hi Andy. No question that the speakers we use for N scale are missing at least the bottom 3 (actually more like the bottom 4) octaves. Most of them only have useable output down to about 500hz, which is not even close to anything one would consider "bass." I characterize the sound as "thin" rather than "tinny" but I agree with the basic point. But my attraction to sound is less about fidelity to the prototype sound than it is to how sound affects operation. For example, I find that it is much more likely that I (or my operators) will run steam locos at appropriate scale speeds when you can hear the chuffs. No more 40-mph switching moves; it is just unnatural to do that when you can hear the chuffs. Same with diesels; though I'm not a big fan of diesel drone, listening to an Alco 539T, 244, or 251B throttle up and down gives you an immediate sense of how fast you are going. Same with the EMD 567 and its distinctive whine as you throttle up through transition. (FWIW, I find this less true of modern diesels with their turbo whine that overpowers everything else). For me, sound is important not for its own sake, but for how it affects operation of a model locomotive. And it's not just me - I observe the same behavior in my operators: they just run sound locomotives differently (and more prototypically) than silent ones. Yes, of course you can SEE that you are operating a silent engine too fast. And in theory, that should be enough to make you slow down. But it isn't. For some reason that I'm sure a psychologist could explain, it is only when you couple sound with observed behavior that it becomes compelling to operate at prototypical speeds and practice. At least, that's my experience. YMMV. John C.
Thanks John, You and I agree more than we disagree. The sound of the steam engine (the cadence of the chuffs) is directly proportional to the locomotive speed, and the operators know and can use that. However, diesels spin a generator that powers electric motors to turn the wheels. The engine runs faster to deliver more power, which is not necessarily proportional to train speed. This is somewhat simulated by sound decoders with sufficient momentum programmed in (you run the throttle up or down quickly, and the diesel responds quickly, while the speed of the train changes more slowly. Good sound decoders can sense the load on the electric motor as well as the speed, and can provide appropriate diesel sound for the throttle, engine speed and load, and train speed. But the resulting sound is not a good way to estimate speed, independent of the other variables. The throttle in a given notch can be barely moving the train up a grade, or flying along down grade. Unfortunately, the JMRI Virtual Sound Decoder only knows the throttle position. At least with momentum (which it knows not), the diesel sound will be somewhat prototypical (the engine speeds up or slows down before the train does). So, on the one hand, with VSD I can have more realistic diesel sounds, but they may vary less prototypically in operation. There are no free lunches. I could invest in larger scale sound decoders, for fixed mounting under the layout, that drive larger speakers for better sound, while consisted with the N scale mobile decoder on the tracks...
I have never seen an N scale locomotive look very good either. You would never mistake a photo of one for a full scale model. They lack detail, because there are physical limits to injection molded plastic. There is always too much spacing between the cars. Models rarely have the road-specific details right. Don't even get me started on the wires usually running between a steam locomotive and the tender! And yet I buy N scale all the time. Modeling always requires compromise. Jim
It's interesting how we all have our aspects of modelling we can overlook, and those we cannot. Seldom are two modelers alike in that regard. That's part of what makes this hobby and forums interesting: seeing how other modelers address those aspects, and maybe finding that bit of magic to solve our own oversights.
