COMPARING CONTROL & SOUND

Side by side comparison of sounds in particular would be extremely subjective.  There are too many variables that come into play including individuals capability to discriminate sounds and what people have come to expect based on what they heard on TV or at a movie (which is often wrong).

TMCC, Legacy, PS-2/PS-3 are primarily controls systems that may or may not have sounds built in but do have tools to access them if they do.  There are third party vendors that have made (one still does, ERR) kits to upgrade conventional or command equipped engines.

PS-2/PS-3/Legacy have built in speed control.  TMCC may have speed control based on the age of the engine and what if anything was "added".  You can by upgrade kits for PS-2/PS-3 to convert flywheel equipped DC can motored engines but you will be basically gutting the existing engine down to the frame (everything goes, lighting harness, couplers, smoke).

PS-2/PS-3 are dedicated boards that allow you to download updates or swap configuration files (within reason, files are specific for engines but there may be multiple files available).  This includes sound sets, e.g. freight vrs passenger sounds.   You need software and a computer interface to do this plus the DCS control system.

Later versions of TMCC (it goes back to 1996/1997) have modular boards that can be swapped out including speed control boards.  There have been a number of these available from different vendors with different features over the years.

Lionel has been using a system called RailSounds for almost 20 years.  They have been doing incremental updates of the system (e.g. 2.5, 3, 4, 5, Legacy).   While you can swap out a sound board the boards from Lionel are "specific" to the engine they are installed in.    Most 3rd party (including licensed systems like K-Line/Atlas/Weaver) used "generic" sound sets.   The early systems used socketed chips that could be swapped if you could get your hands on them.  There are no Legacy sound sets available for upgrade/swapping.

Williams True Blast Two is a basic play back of the grad crossing pattern.  There is no way to adjust/change this.  True Blast Two plus includes prime mover sounds and a whistle/horn that you control the playback on by how long you hold the buttons down on the transformer.

As for sound, both Lionel and MTH are good. From my collection, it would be hard to declare a sound "winner". I have both really good and so-so for both.

I have fooled around with swapping Railsounds sound file boards (pulling a Generic and replacing it with an engine-specific board). In each incident, we've had to to a reset on the engine to get it to work. I do give MTH a nod in the ability to download sound files from their website.

As for WbB, I might consider adding True Blast II board to my existing engines. The old True Blast was pretty weak.

Gilly