MTH PS3 Upgrades - Rudolph

It would be far more cost effective to buy the MTH charger. Also once the battery has a full charge, as the train runs it will keep the battery charged. As for battery replacement. If the PS2 is the 5 v system. Replace the battery if its white with a green one. Spending $20.00 is well worth the investment.

All white batteries should be replaced.

Replace the sliver ones too.

If this is the 30-4173-1 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer set, you won't see any sound improvement changing the board set.  You can change the sound file if there's one that you'd like better.

If you don't like charging the batteries all the time why not switch over to the super capacitor and forget about charging. you just power up about 10 volts and wait for 1 minute while the engine capacitor is charging and then just run your trains with no issues.I've recently put a super capacitor in  my challenger with ps2 3volt board works great!checkout BCR on web page for 3 volt version

Alan here is the cheapest web sight:

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com...-Volt-p/jwe-bcr2.htm

I believe your engine is the PS-2 3V with the blue AA.  That is probably end of life.  You can replace it, or go with the 5V BCR.

You might check the speaker if it is a distortion issue, but it the sounds are just not to your liking, you can't fix the original sounds.  You can load a different sound file.

PS-32 upgrade would still use a PS-2 3V sound file so no real improvement in sound.  G