NO Expensive sound decoders that sound 'tinny"? NO 'under the layout' expensive train sound systems ? I have a different approach ! I have a 'Blackweb Bluetooth Speaker' I bought from Walmart years ago for $29.00. This speaker is small but has BIG sound. It is equipped with dual drivers and passive subwoofers for superior bass! No more tinny sounds. I have a sound file on my phone I made years ago from multiple sources. Yard sounds...dispatch sounds...defect detectors....locomotives start, idling, reving up, shuting down. The file is about 30 minutes long ! Lots of stuff I like to hear on my railroad ! I am in the process of putting together a building from my parts box that I can just set over the speaker. I can put it anywhere on my layout and it will look right at home like it belongs wherever it is...and the sound is AWESOME !! I connect my phone via bluetooth to the speaker and play my train sound file until I am tired of it and switch over to Spotify and listen to some great 80's hair bands for awhile. The building would then be like a nightclub with a live cover band LOL !
Well, you for sure can't go wrong rock some 80's tunes. After all, don't your trains run through "the Jungle" to get to Paradise City"? Actually, that is a great idea for some of that ambient sound we miss on layouts.
sounds like a neat idea for background sounds........a friend has has the rolling thunder system and I hated it. The sound is way out of proportion for the scale, and it doesn't sound like it's coming from the loco. It's loco sounds, but it sounds like it's coming from a speaker under the table, not from the loco. And if more than one loco is moving the problem is worse as you try to figure out which loco is supposed to be making the sounds.
Yea Dave.... I'm not so much for hearing a locomotive screaming at notch 8 as it goes by wherever I am in the train room. I am more for the ambient sounds you might hear...in a stationary location...like a train yard...maybe from a yard tower or dispatch room. As far as trains that are moving...I prefer the 'clicky-clack' as they run over rail joints. Just a personal preference I guess. Rule #1
Well you are not alone I have one sound equipped loco that stays in a box. I regret getting that so it is a museum piece now. I grew up when there was still steam and early diesel. I have stood beside them and watched them. Nothing I have heard yet can come close. I like the soft hum of my little diesels and no more and the soft clickety Clack as they cross a rail joint and the soft sound of wheels running on the track. All accompanied by some smooth jazz playing in the back with the sound turned down.
Personally I prefer the sound of everything over the sounds of one or two trains as they run around the layout. Cars, horns, birds, people talking, random train yard sounds, a beep beep from a truck backing up... things that that which you would hear in an urban environment that we just dont pay attention to. Watch an episode of Star Trek TNG or newer sometime and really listen. Not only are we hearing the sounds of the people talking but if you listen carefully in any scene onboard the ship you will hear a humming. It's a subtle sound but it's the sound of the ship's engines. Take it out of the track and suddenly you feel like something is missing... even though you never really noticed it before. To me sounds like that on a layout are way more important that the sounds of a single locomotive that are way too loud to be scale anyway.
I sometimes find a railroad radio channel on the Internet and enjoy the real-time chatter of Dispatchers and train crews as I mess with my N Scale. Our house is below a ridge line, so I can't hear anything on my pocket scanner.
I do the same. I have a fav railroad radio website. I record lots of 'radio chatter' and dub it all together using Audacity and save the files. I upload them to my phone to play them thru my spaeker. I just think locomotives making lots of noise running around a layout...droning on and on...would get boring and annoying rather quickly. I like what I do and I am a happy camper !!
There is a "Trains at work" on Spotify. It has a long audio track of all kinds of train sounds. It also has tracks with lots of 'train' songs...including 'City of New Orleans'.
First let me digress about Hair metal. I would call me a listener of good music. Here lately I am listening to some Canadian metal bands. Unleash the Archers and Kobra and the Lotus. Archers remind me of Dio/ Iron Maiden but with a female lead. Good stuff!!! I use certain hair metal for certain tasks, Dokken: wiring Krokus, Scorpions, Deaf Leopard, ( I know I spelled it wrong), Quiet Riot and Queensryche for track laying and general tasks. Damn Yankees, Van Halen, winger, white snake, Van Hagar( you know what I mean. Lol) , Bonham, Tyketto for carpentry tasks. I even go back to bands like Rainbow, Triumph. There are more I can list. as for the topic. I like the sound from one or two locos. I run ESU Lok sound and the protothrottle. Remember the company in the 80’s that actually sold “ smells”? laters, Wyatt
I like that idea, but I am really missing the distinctive Baldwin burble. The only downside is that I still need a sound decoder for that burble.
The sound that will come from my layout is distant trains, small town activities and birds. Nothing fancy just melow low volume sounds from three speakers around the layout. Each one with a different sound track on a 20 to 30 minute loop. Joe