ERR Railsounds Board

The LM4861M amplifier on the board is capable of a max of 1.5W into an 8 ohm load, that however comes with a THD of 10%.  To keep the total harmonic distortion to a reasonable 1% level, the max power is 1% with 5VDC power.  I believe the amp is actually running on 3.3V, so to keep the same 1% THD, it will only produce 1/2 watt.

I am not so happy with the ERR Railsounds boards. If you have a space problem their better than no sound. You can get reasonable volume with them if you have a long open end tube.  They are loud enough if you mount the speaker on the end of a 10-12" long open end tube, but not in an un-vented enclosure, at least one that will fit in a loco or tender.  Problem is getting that 10" tube inside a loco or tender. I think a type of folded path vented enclosure may be the answer. It would still be on the large side.  Perhaps casting it out of metal could allow walls thin enough, yet not to resonate, at the sound pressure levels that a .5W amp can generate.                     j

Part of the problem with volume is the Baby Fatboys they include with the kit. They are nowhere as efficient as the 50mm Fatboys as well as a few other options out there. I am miffed Lionel uses them in their "super bass" engines. I can only guess the sound files are programed for greater bass and overall amplitude.

That said I know folks who are using a pair of 50mm Fatboys in parallel and rocking the halls with the volume and haven't blown a Railsounds board even after hours of running. YMMV

Pete

Pete, the RS-Lite board actually has overload limiting, that showed up when the H10's were programmed too high a level, it was the reason the sounds were cutting out.  Other than shorting the amplifier outputs, I think it's pretty hard to cook the audio amp.  FWIW, Scott has told me that the chief reason he gets RS Commander boards back is a blown amplifier.  They may be shorting them to the chassis, or maybe they're not quite as robust as I believe.

I use the generic 2” speakers that I have on hand and I do feel the have better sound than the speakers supplied with the ERR kits. But for me, I don’t turn the volume up so loud that it gets overwhelming where I can’t even hear people talking to me. 

Good to know. Nowadays I try and use speakers with a sensitivity of 83db or better. Parts Express has a number of them now. Check out Visiton and Tectonic. 

86db, 190HZ Fs

https://www.parts-express.com/...eaker-8-ohm--292-640

82db, 148HZ Fs

https://www.parts-express.com/...aker-8-ohm--297-2168

Pete

My volume issue with the EER Railsounds board is the discrepancy in volume between the prime mover and horn/bell.  The horn volume seems like it is always 10x louder than the prime mover. As I adjust the volume upward, just as the prime mover becomes barely audible, the horn becomes so loud, it wakes up my wife and daughter at the opposite end of the house!

Pete, when the this Visaton is used, how to do you baffle/mount it?  Thanks for the info; Falcon70

@Falcon70 posted:

Pete, when the this Visaton is used, how to do you baffle/mount it?  Thanks for the info; Falcon70

You are always limited by space. The first one I tried I used a Testors paint cap. Closed box. This was in a Hiawatha Atlantic tender so medium size. 

I may be doing another Hudson with a PT tender and will use two of them but they may be a while.

Pete

@GregR posted:

My volume issue with the EER Railsounds board is the discrepancy in volume between the prime mover and horn/bell.  The horn volume seems like it is always 10x louder than the prime mover. As I adjust the volume upward, just as the prime mover becomes barely audible, the horn becomes so loud, it wakes up my wife and daughter at the opposite end of the house!

If any of the electronic guys have a fix for this please let us know. 

@GregR posted:

My volume issue with the EER Railsounds board is the discrepancy in volume between the prime mover and horn/bell.  The horn volume seems like it is always 10x louder than the prime mover. As I adjust the volume upward, just as the prime mover becomes barely audible, the horn becomes so loud, it wakes up my wife and daughter at the opposite end of the house!

Try AUX1/VOLUP a few times, that will bring up the prime mover sound level.

@Falcon70 posted:

Pete, when the this Visaton is used, how to do you baffle/mount it?  Thanks for the info; Falcon70

I use 2" thin-wall PVC pipe and build a cap from Styrene sheet.  Typically, I hot glue them down if there's no mounting provisions for the speaker.  Many builds I have to make the holes for the speaker.

Pete, John, thanks for the info; imagine if sealed well it must sound good!  Falcon70

@Falcon70 posted:

Pete, John, thanks for the info; imagine if sealed well it must sound good!  Falcon70

The enclosures help but as small as the speakers are, a paint cap is still too small. You get a peak in the mid bass but loose the low bass. An ideal enclosure for even these is a sealed tender body. Lionel did that with their Pullmor Commodore Vanderbilts and Mohawks. Even with RS2/2.5 they sound great.

Pete

Lionel's recent steamers all feature an internal speaker baffle, very few people have complaints about the Vision Line Big Boy sound, that one created a chamber in the rear of the tender for the two speakers.  FWIW, they used the 40mm fatboy speakers.

The second sound system in the locomotive also has a baffle and uses the same 40mm fatboy speaker.

The Lionel speakers can sound very good with the proper installation.  Obviously, if you want to go bigger and spend a bunch more money and time, you can improve the sound, but there is a point of diminishing returns to that effort. 

IMO, most of the Lionel steam sound is the best available right now, though I have to give the edge for diesels to MTH, they seem to have taken more care with those than their steam models.

In the case of modern Lionel, they also control the sound source. They can boost the frequencies where their drivers are deficient. Someone using generic Railsounds from a 3rd party doesn't have that control unless they insert their own amplifier with equalizer. 

It would be interesting to do spectrum analysis of the signal driving the speaker of say a JLC Big Boy vs the current Vision model. 

Pete

Yes, Lionel and MTH can both control the sound source, certainly a significant benefit to the OEM installations.

@Norton posted:

It would be interesting to do spectrum analysis of the signal driving the speaker of say a JLC Big Boy vs the current Vision model. 

Since it's quite likely that the sounds came from a different recorded source, it's not necessarily Lionel tweaking the sounds, but simply a better recording of the sounds at the source.

We can continue to speculate but its apparent the "super bass"engines are making deeper and louder bass notes than we hear from previous engines with baby fat boys even those with enclosures. The enclosue that ERR supplies with their kits is about the same volume as the one pictured above yet many complain the sound is thin. The enclosure is only part of the answer.

Pete

Quite possibly Pete, as you say, they do have control of all the aspects.  Since I don't have that capability, I do the best I can with speakers and enclosures.  FWIW, I've tried the ERR speaker and baffle in a tender, and also the speaker without a baffle in a tender, and the baffle certainly helped the ERR speaker in that environment.  The tender in question was fairly well sealed, any holes in the frame were sealed, so other than any gap where the shell joins, it was sealed.

The speakers you referenced earlier are certainly an upgrade from the ERR speakers, of that there is no argument, at least from me.

Good stuff here you; side question: to me, I notice that RS is more robust and has a deeper sound than MTH sound files; does MTH use a higher threshold for bass?  I only ask because I can check the difference using a Tang Bang base reflex enclosure, and to me the RS will always sound better than the MTH sound file.  Just curious if anyone has analyzed the freq spectrum.  Thanks; Falcon70

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Try AUX1/VOLUP a few times, that will bring up the prime mover sound level.

Thanks John, Unfortunately, I do have the blend volume all the way up. Despite this, the horn volume is always way louder than the prime mover for every given master volume level set on the board. The issue is the discrepancy in the relative volume of the horn vs. the prime mover as programmed into the ERR card. It would be nice to have the volumes somewhat balanced when the blend volume is turned all the way up. This seems to affect my ERR GP7/9 and Alco C420 sound sets the worst.

I see this thing from time to time. For example, I have a set of MTH Budd cars. Some stations are announced very loudly, while others were barely audible. At least with MTH, I was able to pull the sound files apart, adjust the volume and fix their sound engineering error. With Lionel / ERR, I believe I'm stuck.

Woudn't it be nice if we could adjust master volume from the remote instead of on the ERR  board (or in my case, volume pots with leads tacked onto the ERR board). But I don't think that's in the cards. I'm guessing those are TMCC2 commands?

Nope, you have all the adjustment you're ever going to get with the ERR sound cards.

Is there away to find out which version the sound is?

i have a large steam ERR steam sound board and would like to know what version it is.  Seem the sound board sounds like old sound of steam

i have AC commander installed with the ERR sound board

Thanks for any help

There is exactly one version of the sound files for any ERR RS-Lite sound board, that's from the old ERR from a few years ago to the current 3rd Rail ERR boards.  If you have the newer single board RailSounds Commander, there never was a change or update to the sound set on the boards from the first release.

Thanks for the fast reply Gunrunner. Your knowledge is always greatly appreciated by everyone on this forum

@romiller49 posted:

I use the generic 2” speakers that I have on hand and I do feel the have better sound than the speakers supplied with the ERR kits. But for me, I don’t turn the volume up so loud that it gets overwhelming where I can’t even hear people talking to me.

Along those lines, and as someone who does not like LOUD locos (I'm old, but not deaf; sound should be "scale", also), I always use the speaker that came with the loco, if such exists. It usually does. It's already mounted, typically out of the way, probably of good quality, and requires only massaging of the wire connectors.

They seem to work just fine. I've never investigated the ohms.

@D500 posted:

They seem to work just fine. I've never investigated the ohms.

Well, you should take note of the speaker impedance as they can affect the life of your sound outputs, depending on what was installed and what you are installing.