AF Berkshire sound question

Check the pins in the couplers on the loco and tender.  We had seen these get weak and the loose connections caused intermittent sound failures on one of the PE units during our christmas show.

Nick C.

We have at least three of these in our club, the only thing that I have seen is not having coupler fully engaged, so the tops of the couplings are flush.

Ray

I just brought mine home from the LHS and noticed the same thing.  Reminded me of the sound in the UP Northern if the volume is turned up too high.  I tried turning down the volume and the "scratchiness" gets better but the whistle is too low to hear when the engine is running.  I opened the tender and there is only a speaker in there inside a plastic enclosure.  I am going to try a different speaker and see what that does......

Rolland

I just brought mine home from the LHS and noticed the same thing.  Reminded me of the sound in the UP Northern if the volume is turned up too high.  I tried turning down the volume and the "scratchiness" gets better but the whistle is too low to hear when the engine is running.  I opened the tender and there is only a speaker in there inside a plastic enclosure.  I am going to try a different speaker and see what that does......

Rolland

Roland,

I did not have the static or scratchy sound you mention in my Berks but thought the volume left something to be desired. I replaced the speaker with a Fatboy speaker from Electric Railroad, this noticeably increase the volume of Railsounds  in the P.E. and my NKP.

Ray

In my opinion the sound is just lower quality in the Berks compared to legacy locos. It is probably due to the cost of these particular engine's. It is interesting if a speaker swap would fix it.

Rayin"S" posted:

I just brought mine home from the LHS and noticed the same thing.  Reminded me of the sound in the UP Northern if the volume is turned up too high.  I tried turning down the volume and the "scratchiness" gets better but the whistle is too low to hear when the engine is running.  I opened the tender and there is only a speaker in there inside a plastic enclosure.  I am going to try a different speaker and see what that does......

Rolland

 

Roland,

I did not have the static or scratchy sound you mention in my Berks but thought the volume left something to be desired. I replaced the speaker with a Fatboy speaker from Electric Railroad, this noticeably increase the volume of Railsounds  in the P.E. and my NKP.

Ray

Thanks for the replies.  

When I finally got through to Lionel service, they suggested checking the impedance of the speaker, but I forgot to ask what the spec is.  Does anyone know what the impedance should be?  (It's not worth spending another half hour on hold to ask Lionel.)

Is there a part number for the Fatboy speaker that is mentioned above?

I find no part number for the speaker, it is listed on the ERR website as Hi-Fi "Fat Boy" and sells for  $10.00.

Ray