New Lionel S Catalog - Sounds of Silence part 2

@TOKELLY posted:

I have debated about updating  to DCC, but I would have to modify 41 locomotives; so it's a short debate. When I bought my first Legacy locomotive ten years ago, the sound quality was impressive and the sound options interesting (except the crew chatter). In ten years, however, Lionel's Railsounds have not been expanded or improved because the proprietary Legacy system faces no competition despite much of it being open-source. Suppliers of DCC, on the other hand, compete with each other and continually improve their products. Andre's examples of "back EMF" were extraordinary and very realistic. No doubt future DCC features will continue to offer more realism and options as manufacturers compete both with innovations and exceptional service. That is not the case with a proprietary operating system and a "take it or leave it" attitude. If I were rich or young or both, I would start to switch to DCC immediately because of all the features. I would stay in S scale because of all the friendships and support we modelers give each other.

Terry O'Kelly     

One big issue in O scale is many operators never read the instructions. There are so many features that are never used, the second part is in HO there is very little obsolete no further info. I cannot tell you how many friends bring me their HO engines that have issues and the only response from the manufacturer is how can be help. No matter the age, the do not walk away from their product unlike in ) gauge.

Lionel should continue the American Flyer Line with re-issues of all Gilbert tools.  There are many that have never been offered in the Lionel era.  Think how nice it was to see the beautiful Baldwin and Dockside Locos reborn as modern, high quality yet simple operators.  Lionel could do the same with the Gilbert F unit and 0-8-0 switcher.  Or the 0-6-0 B6.  Make them FlyerChief.  Too iconic of a brand to ignore.  I wished they had used the Gilbert tool for the heavyweights or copied it giving us glossy green or red options. 

@Mike W. posted:

Lionel should continue the American Flyer Line with re-issues of all Gilbert tools.  There are many that have never been offered in the Lionel era.  Think how nice it was to see the beautiful Baldwin and Dockside Locos reborn as modern, high quality yet simple operators.  Lionel could do the same with the Gilbert F unit and 0-8-0 switcher.  Or the 0-6-0 B6.  Make them FlyerChief.  Too iconic of a brand to ignore.  I wished they had used the Gilbert tool for the heavyweights or copied it giving us glossy green or red options.

Well...maybe; but not with the "F unit"...which is an "F unit" in name only.

As "Bob2" used to say..."opinion".

Mark in Oregon

@Mike W. posted:

Lionel should continue the American Flyer Line with re-issues of all Gilbert tools.  There are many that have never been offered in the Lionel era. 

I think the question is why?  There is so much original ACG Flyer to be had and more is coming on the market as collections are liquidated.  And I might add for better prices and quality than anything Lionel has made of the re-issues.  I have learned the hard way that original accessories are way better (and more durable) than any of the repros.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

@Mike W. posted:

Lionel should continue the American Flyer Line with re-issues of all Gilbert tools.  There are many that have never been offered in the Lionel era.  Think how nice it was to see the beautiful Baldwin and Dockside Locos reborn as modern, high quality yet simple operators.  Lionel could do the same with the Gilbert F unit and 0-8-0 switcher.  Or the 0-6-0 B6.  Make them FlyerChief.  Too iconic of a brand to ignore.  I wished they had used the Gilbert tool for the heavyweights or copied it giving us glossy green or red options.

Many of the Gilbert tools are either in poor shape or are no longer in existance. When it was reissued, the tooling for the Northern yielded poor product and had to be done anew except for the seam chest tool. Much of the tooling for the 0-8-0, the Hudson, K5, and Northern dates to before WW2 and is unuseable for a quality product. I have seen test shots from the Gilbert heavyweight tool and no one would want the result. That's why we have new heavyweights. The tool for the No. 350 and the "New Haven" cars do not exist. The 0-6-0 B6 is too small to contain the FlyerChief bits and smoke. Back in the day when Lionel had a real product plan for AF, Todd Wagner showed to me example test shots and tools and the conclusion is that one can not really revisit the past .... unless one buys nice Gilbert originals which are plentiful and affordable these days.

Many of the tools for the accessories do exist and were reused, but many of the accessories that operate (Louie the Loader, saw mill, coal loaders, ets.) are usually best acquired by finding their Gilbert originals, as Tom posts above. Some exceptions are the handcar, the No. 594 Animated Track Gang, the No. 582 blinker signal, and the light towers.

So it goes.

Bob

I am with Bob on this, the reality of the Gilbert tooling is not what we would like it to be.

There already is a FlyerChief Baldwin Switcher  and a FlyerChief Docksider, I have the Docksider as part of set 6-47958. It is a nice running engine. It looks like the injection mold tooling and stampings tooling is all new. The smoke unit was left out to fit the FlyerChief boards in the engine. Manual couplers rather than electrocouplers were used. The chassis is diecast, possibly all new as well.

The Baldwin Switcher was cataloged in eight different paint schemes with a $260 catalog price.

Since they could make a FlyerChief Docksider, Lionel might be able to do the same with an 0-6-0. Given the cost of new tooling and electronics today, I am not sure we would like the price of a new 0-6-0, however, if Lionel made it I would buy it.

Yeah the late Gilbert F unit is awkward but oddly cool and tough to find in many of the road names.  There may be more original Gilbert coming onto the market but mint and nice condition stuff needs to be protected as its a treasure that represents history and will never exist again.  As far as stuff that is in used condition, much of the late Gilbert stuff was delicate and not the best operationally.  The Baldwins and Docksiders come to mind.  Lionel improved gearing and updated the drivetrain with a can motor.  Baldwin went through 2 makeovers.  First version used the can motor over the original Gilbert motor like with the early MPC Geeps and PAs.  Later all diesels got the new vertical can motor and new truck gearing.  We will see what comes of AF.  I am not a fan of some of scale cars with almost HO style wheels etc.  And the new traditional Gilbert caboose that looks like a shrunken MPC starter set caboose.  The design loosely based off the SP caboose of the PW era.

@Landsteiner posted:

"In ten years, however, Lionel's Railsounds have not been expanded or improved because the proprietary Legacy system faces no competition despite much of it being open-source."

Newest Railsounds for Legacy locos include choices of at least five different whistles, bells and other sounds not previously available.  The speaker systems have been improved as well, at least in the O gauge locos.  Cannot speak for S gauge however.  DCC systems in HO have nowhere near the sound quality of Legacy Railsounds in O in many cases, simply because the speakers are relatively small.  In sound systems, speaker size and quality are key determinants of the listening experience.

You would think so, but you are actually incorrect. HO now has purpose-built speakers and tuned enclosures from several companies like Scale Sound Systems that can reproduce low end frequency on par with O scale RailSounds. Additionally, there are speakers available from Tang Band that fit many HO diesels and especially steam engines that have fantastic low end frequency response. And that's really the only difference historically - the lack of bass. Also, if you think that Legacy RailSounds are all accurate you are mistaken. DCC has FAR more accurate sound options. 

You are making definitive statements here that are factually incorrect. DCC has surpassed RailSounds in audio quality, prototype specific sounds, modularity, upgradability, and compactness.

The last point I will make is that there are so many more people in HO scale that want the best, most accurate sound possible that companies actually keep innovating and bringing out new products. Quite a difference between RailSounds giving you 5 generic horns to choose from, and DCC which has pretty much every horn ever made available.

If you haven't heard what's possible in modern HO, you should. Don't assume the old knowledge still holds true.

I really have to agree with Jonathan.  While I am far from an expert on DCC and the variety of sounds available, I can say I briefly looked into Blunami.  The configurations available for steam sound are virtually every locomotive ever produced.  When I see someone trying to compare Legacy to any DCC system I am bewildered.  Five different sounds compared to any DCC digital sound decoder isn’t worth mentioning, unless Legacy was at a starter set price line.  It’s like FlyerChief, you don’t expect much and you don’t get much.  Perhaps adequate for some, but certainly not worth the price with what else is available.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

I am a Legacy/LCS operator. The Legacy system has many nice features and capabilities for those of us who use AC track power and own many older engines. It is fully backwards compatible with any universal motor equipped engine. All that is required is to turn on the power block with a conventional engine and use the same Cab2 handheld to run it. All the Legacy and TMCC engines remain stopped since they are not being addressed. LCS Sensor tracks allow for simple  preprogrammed automation.

However, that said and just as Jonathan said, DCC is far superior in all sound aspects, compactness and upgradability. S gauge has more interior volume so even more speaker options are possible.

I wonder if this is even a discussion worth having in S gauge. Those who want DCC on their S layout have it. Those who prefer the Legacy system have it and generally like it. Our complaint is lack of new Legacy engines. As hopefully everyone knows, in 16 years Lionel has only made nine Legacy engines in S gauge, none of which are any longer in production. Five were steam; the Big Boy, Challenger, Y3, Berkshire and light Pacific. Four were diesels; the U33/36, ES44, SD70ACe and the PA. To me that is the point of the Sounds of Silence. Even for those who use DCC, there are no engines in production. Lionel will likely issue more repaints of FlyerChief engines, I consider those to be too toy-like, inaccurate and lacking detail but they are inexpensive and sell well. I continue to believe if Lionel makes the right new Legacy engines there will be enough S gauge buyers to make them financially viable. Since they also run on DCC (but are not true DCC) maybe Lionel would even offer a scale wheel retrofit package like they did for the early U33's.

@AmFlyer posted:

I am a Legacy/LCS operator. The Legacy system has many nice features and capabilities for those of us who use AC track power and own many older engines. It is fully backwards compatible with any universal motor equipped engine. All that is required is to turn on the power block with a conventional engine and use the same Cab2 handheld to run it. All the Legacy and TMCC engines remain stopped since they are not being addressed. LCS Sensor tracks allow for simple  preprogrammed automation.

However, that said and just as Jonathan said, DCC is far superior in all sound aspects, compactness and upgradability. S gauge has more interior volume so even more speaker options are possible.

I wonder if this is even a discussion worth having in S gauge. Those who want DCC on their S layout have it. Those who prefer the Legacy system have it and generally like it. Our complaint is lack of new Legacy engines. As hopefully everyone knows, in 16 years Lionel has only made nine Legacy engines in S gauge, none of which are any longer in production. Five were steam; the Big Boy, Challenger, Y3, Berkshire and light Pacific. Four were diesels; the U33/36, ES44, SD70ACe and the PA. To me that is the point of the Sounds of Silence. Even for those who use DCC, there are no engines in production. Lionel will likely issue more repaints of FlyerChief engines, I consider those to be too toy-like, inaccurate and lacking detail but they are inexpensive and sell well. I continue to believe if Lionel makes the right new Legacy engines there will be enough S gauge buyers to make them financially viable. Since they also run on DCC (but are not true DCC) maybe Lionel would even offer a scale wheel retrofit package like they did for the early U33's.

Tom,

I am also a Legacy/TMCC operator, what I see now if you want a detailed engine with remote operation they will come from American Models or perhaps Scale Trains and, add the new Blunami Bluetooth DCC decoder. Taking the chance that I may be repeating myself, I do not want to invest in another control system, these run from my cell with the app.  At the present time an A.M. Trainmaster is my attempt to run in conjunction with my Legacy trains on the AC rail power. The sounds and operation is much superior, lighting and sound are all in the decoder, you want Mars light just program it in, the problem is converting the AC and lowering the DC voltage to what the 2200 will operate on. I have run this on DC rail power to feel my way around and get familiar with the decoder but, that is not acceptable. I want to run at the same time and on the same track as my Legacy/TMCC trains, this has been done by the O gauge community but they have more room in their locomotives than we have in S.

I am not holding my breadth waiting for more from AF.

Ray

"HO now has purpose-built speakers and tuned enclosures from several companies like Scale Sound Systems that can reproduce low end frequency on par with O scale RailSounds. Additionally, there are speakers available from Tang Band that fit many HO diesels and especially steam engines that have fantastic low end frequency response. "

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these are aftermarket products that require additional expense, expertise and time to install. If so, it's not an apples to apples comparison with the ready to run nature of Legacy.  And my primary point remains that the comment that there have been no upgrades over recent years to Legacy and Railsounds is incorrect.   If you want to compare HO digital sounds to O gauge sounds, fairness requires comparing the standard speakers/equipment in Kato, Scale Trains, Rapido, Atlas, etc. to Lionel and MTH standard equipment, not to custom aftermarket products.

Ray, I am not holding my breath either but I do have funds available if Lionel makes something new. I am also glad to see you are participating as an early adopter with the Blunami system. At the present I have all the engines I want from what has been produced by Lionel and by AM. All my AM engines were converted to TMCC/Railsounds by Ed Goldin. I also had the two FlyerChief steam engines I purchased converted to TMCC/Railsounds.

The easiest solution for using AC track power with Blunami would be to put the power conversion board in a dummy unit with a wire tether to the powered unit. We did that with some of the smaller AM engines to fit in all the TMCC/Railsounds features I wanted.

How are you firing the electrocouplers with Blunami? Some of the O gaugers are custom making separate boards to do this. I have two diesels that I would pay to have converted to Blunami, so far I do not know of anyone willing to take on this work in S gauge. Zero chance I will do it myself. The same problem exists with Legacy conversions. There are three people currently doing Legacy conversions in O gauge, none in S gauge. Ed is looking into if it is possible and what it would take to gut one of my old Challengers and put in current generation Legacy including Sensor track IR transmitters and whistle steam. He is not optimistic.

@Rayin"S" posted:

Tom,

add the new Blunami Bluetooth DCC decoder.

I am not holding my breadth waiting for more from AF.

Ray

Ray,

You made the jump!  What can you tell us about your experience with Blunami so far?  Blunami is something I’ve been considering for my Xmas layout.  However I get cold feet because what happens if I decide on DCC or ScaleTrains comes out with an ESU equipped engine?

I believe there is already a Blunami thread and I don’t want to hijack this thread unless it is thought appropriate here.  And I do have more questions...

https://ogrforum.com/...2#169515031351136192

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

Tom, I have gone to the point of purchasing the Soundtraxx 2200 Blunami decoder and installing it in my AM Trainmaster. As I mentioned I have run it on filtered DC track power, I am currently attempting to operate it on track with 18.5 volts from my Legacy system. I have gotten the engine to run using a rectifier and a step-down buck converter but, I still need to work a smoothing cap into the circuit and fit it into the AM engine. I have gotten it to operate but periodically it will stop and restart itself. I believe that is happening because of the lack of the smoothing cap.

Don't be concerned if you might go to DCC, the Blunami will operate in the DCC  environment, that's the beautiful part plus DCC decoders work with other decoders.

Ray

@Tom Stoltz posted:

Ray,

You made the jump!  What can you tell us about your experience with Blunami so far?  Blunami is something I’ve been considering for my Xmas layout.  However I get cold feet because what happens if I decide on DCC or ScaleTrains comes out with an ESU equipped engine?

I believe there is already a Blunami thread and I don’t want to hijack this thread unless it is thought appropriate here.  And I do have more questions...

https://ogrforum.com/...2#169515031351136192

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

Tom, I am getting closer to the Blunami to operate on the Legacy ac voltage, when I have this where I am satisfied with it I'll do a video of the operation from cranking the engine to shut down. I will also try to show how simple it is to select the engine choice, the horn or whistle and the bell. I will try to show how to select a Mars light or Gyro light what ever you might prefer. Soundtraxx has done a bunch of videos with instructions but I will try the layman's video.

Ray

That will be great Ray.  I was just looking at the Soundtraxx website and it is still over whelming to me.  Chuck K was kind enough to call me and talk about it for a while, but I'm still not sure.  At that time he had not tried one yet.  A real user's report with S trains would be fantastic.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

Tom,

I reread your reply, don't feel bad about feeling overwhelmed with the website, that is how I felt at first. I am by no means an electronics expert, I was a machinist all my working life, just enjoyed working with my hands. Electronics always interested me but I got lost pretty easily, I spent a good deal of time on the Soundtraxx website, downloaded and printed out the manuals and spent a good amount of time trying to understand this stuff, eventually the fog started to clear. I am by no means well versed in the DCC but there is so much help on their website for nubees, their customer service is fantastic. A biggy is they stand behind you for ninety days with the decoders, if you blow it up they replace it, what more can you ask for? I am beyond that ninety days now and I am cautious as I work with the decoder but I am seeing the light at the end of this project, looking now at some buck-reducers that are smaller than what I have in the Trainmaster. I want to try to get this into an AM GP. I don't know about the heat dissipation on the smaller boards but I will find out, may have to add a heat sink but that may eliminate it if the space is not there, I guess we'll find out. Right now the conversion to Blunami is very comparable, cost-wise, as going TMCC, just need to find the elements to fit in the space.

Ray

So does any body hold out any hope for scale trains making any track?

Scale Trains stated they plan to release new track production based on the SHS/MTH track and hopefully with some larger radius turnouts. They have not commented recently on the status. What they have discussed in some detail is the reality of getting the first HO steam engine and passenger cars into production. Those are the  former MTH J4 and matching cars. They are more than a year behind their original plan and way over the amount of resources they estimated. Shane Wilson has talked about the background on this in some of his YouTubes. I suspect those resources were diverted from other products including the S gauge track.

I have seen no indication the plans are cancelled, but the product release will likely be at least a year or two later than they initially thought. I take the fact that the S gauge hopper, box car and caboose were released as a positive sign. As long as sales reach the target amounts we S gaugers will be ok. If sales are under targets then we did it to ourselves by not supporting Scale Trains entry into S.

@AmFlyer posted:

Scale Trains stated they plan to release new track production based on the SHS/MTH track and hopefully with some larger radius turnouts. They have not commented recently on the status.

I have seen no indication the plans are cancelled, but the product release will likely be at least a year or two later than they initially thought. I take the fact that the S gauge hopper, box car and caboose were released as a positive sign. As long as sales reach the target amounts we S gaugers will be ok. If sales are under targets then we did it to ourselves by not supporting Scale Trains entry into S.

Tom, I found this from the S Scale Model Railroading group on FB:

<I talked with a rep from Scale Trains at the Springfield show and he explained that the hopper car run did very well, the box cars did okay and then interest fell off. They are planning on doing more freight cars but beyond that it depends on the interest from the S scale community. They have other projects in other scales that take a lot of time and this also impacts their decision making process. I would love to see scale length 85’ postwar lightweight passenger cars but without a sizeable demand it won’t happen. And who amoung us wouldn’t want to see an S scale consolidation or perhaps an RS-1, RS-3 with road specific detail. My wish list is endless but I understand that from a business perspective many things need to come together for this to happen. The DEMAND has to be there for any of this to even be considered. And he pointed out that the profit margin has to be more in line with the other scales.>

I can’t vouch for its accuracy but the last line echoes your last two lines.  I have not seen much positive info regarding Scale Trains & S production lately.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

Tom, thanks for the update.  That FB post sounds consistent with my post and my understanding of the Scale Trains S gauge status. I believe part of any sales problem with the EV cabooses (scheduled for 5/31/2024 delivery) is the lack of popular roadnames that S gaugers model. For example, no UP, PRR, NYC, NH or NPR. The reason none were cataloged is Scale Trains builds true to prototype and none of those railroads owned that specific caboose.

With the introduction of the new Hypotypical Line within the Rivet Counter Line, perhaps Scale trains could make some of the EV cabooses for those roadnames. It would certainly increase sales. One of the reasons Shane gave for creating the Hypotypical Line was to be able to do this type of model.

I have some of the old AM 84' lightweights, I do enjoy running them. Fortunately my minimum radius curve is 30" and the sharpest turnout passenger cars see is a #6.

@AmFlyer posted:

Tom, thanks for the update.  That FB post sounds consistent with my post and my understanding of the Scale Trains S gauge status. I believe part of any sales problem with the EV cabooses (scheduled for 5/31/2024 delivery) is the lack of popular roadnames that S gaugers model. For example, no UP, PRR, NYC, NH or NPR. The reason none were cataloged is Scale Trains builds true to prototype and none of those railroads owned that specific caboose.

I have some of the old AM 84' lightweights, I do enjoy running them. Fortunately my minimum radius curve is 30" and the sharpest turnout passenger cars see is a #6.

Hey, but they made a Reading EV -- I ordered one.  I know I never saw one on the Reading so I thought it was 'fantasy'.  I only ever saw the Flyer caboose on the Reading.

Not sure how this fits the thread, but I use body mounted Kadee #5s on my 84 footers.  They are fine on 36" radius.  My inside curve is 33"R and sometimes they have a bit of trouble... I do use easements.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

The Reading EV caboose is a fantastic looking car. It is not one of the four I have on order but I may still order one. The two numbers offered, 94104 and 94110, are correct prototype Reading numbers for that style caboose. SHS sold these cabooses years ago and the Scale Trains versions do not duplicate the prototype numbers used by SHS.

I retained the truck mounted couplers but shortened all the coupler arms by 1/4" to eliminate the gap between the cars. I also mounted diaphragms on all the cars.

36"R is more than enough with easements to use body mounts. 30"R works if the easement length is longer than the car length, unfortunately my easements are only about 6" long. I will stay with the truck mounts. Tom, enjoy those 84' cars and the Reading caboose when you get it.

I sure hope Scale Trains makes more items for S gauge.

@AmFlyer posted:

Scale Trains stated they plan to release new track production based on the SHS/MTH track and hopefully with some larger radius turnouts. They have not commented recently on the status. What they have discussed in some detail is the reality of getting the first HO steam engine and passenger cars into production. Those are the  former MTH J4 and matching cars. They are more than a year behind their original plan and way over the amount of resources they estimated. Shane Wilson has talked about the background on this in some of his YouTubes. I suspect those resources were diverted from other products including the S gauge track.

I have seen no indication the plans are cancelled, but the product release will likely be at least a year or two later than they initially thought. I take the fact that the S gauge hopper, box car and caboose were released as a positive sign. As long as sales reach the target amounts we S gaugers will be ok. If sales are under targets then we did it to ourselves by not supporting Scale Trains entry into S.

I wouldn't say the track is dead, but in my conversations with Shane, let's just say I don't think we will see it anytime soon, if at all (my opinion). As you said, they have other priorities, and the numbers just aren't there. I just ordered another 6 cabooses and 6 box cars to help do my part. At this point I just hope they get around to making new runs of the diesels before I max out my fleet.  I'm not sure we will ever see the 2-8-0 again, but I hope we do.  I would be ecstatic about any newly tooled freight, passenger car, or caboose.  Shane is a really nice guy who likes S... Hopefully he tries something new, and it sells well. Reaching a consensus in S is almost impossible these days, but I'm happy to help him in any way I can.

@Landsteiner posted:

"HO now has purpose-built speakers and tuned enclosures from several companies like Scale Sound Systems that can reproduce low end frequency on par with O scale RailSounds. Additionally, there are speakers available from Tang Band that fit many HO diesels and especially steam engines that have fantastic low end frequency response. "

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these are aftermarket products that require additional expense, expertise and time to install. If so, it's not an apples to apples comparison with the ready to run nature of Legacy.  And my primary point remains that the comment that there have been no upgrades over recent years to Legacy and Railsounds is incorrect.   If you want to compare HO digital sounds to O gauge sounds, fairness requires comparing the standard speakers/equipment in Kato, Scale Trains, Rapido, Atlas, etc. to Lionel and MTH standard equipment, not to custom aftermarket products.

That's because you have an O gauge perspective. Anyone in scale modeling is used to swapping parts, electronics, speakers, etc... Nobody said we were comparing stock RTR vs stock RTR. The point was what is achievable in smaller scales today vs. 1994 (or there about) when RailSounds was released. The gap has been closed and surpassed in many ways largely due to open standards and competition.

As an Audiophile and 47-year model railroader, I gravitated to Lionel when they released RailSounds/TMCC in the mid 90's because there was nothing else like it. Fast forward to today and I have explored DCC/Sound installs in N, HO, S scale, S-HiRail, On30, 3RO, and 2RO. Modern DCC/Sound beats RailSounds in every category if you compare apples to apples. Yes, N scale won't have the same frequency response as O scale due to the available space and limited speaker/enclosure size. But if you look at it as a ratio of frequency response to scale then smaller scales actually do very well with modern speakers such as Scale Sound Systems. To be completely accurate, the smaller scales can actually reproduce more of the low-end frequencies if an external under-layout subwoofer system is implemented. You can't do that with RailSounds. Did you know that some of the sound files in RailSounds and ProtoSounds have their low frequencies rolled off between 500-1000 Hz? MTH was notorious for doing that. That pretty much negates any benefit larger speakers would give in O. My S and HO Diesels produce bass response below 100Hz for example.

Not to continue on this tangent, but I have a passion for sound, and I don't want anyone reading this thread to be misled. If you prefer RailSounds that's great! That's a personal choice based on opinion, and you are entitled to your opinion. Objectively speaking though DCC/Sound is superior.  I'm happy to answer any questions offline that anyone may have.

"But if you look at it as a ratio of frequency response to scale then smaller scales actually do very well with modern speakers such as Scale Sound Systems. "

I'm a physician and I'm pretty sure that hearing doesn't work that way .  I'm a human being not an oscilloscope.  Sound is almost, but not entirely subjective, to be sure.

We're talking past each other.  I was primarly responding to the comment that Lionel hadn't improved Railsounds during the last 10 years, from the perspective of the O and S gauge locos they make.  That's factually incorrect.   I wish that they felt they could profitably provide more variety of models in S gauge to please my S gauge brethren, for sure.  But Legacy is a very good RTR system for those who don't want to experiment with modifications, and DCC works real well for those who prefer it, no argument.  Whether one is inherently superior is entirely subjective to the desires and needs of the individual hobbyist.

If someone believes the capabilities of a half inch speaker in an N gauge loco can reproduce sound that is subjectively or objectively better than a two or three inch speaker in an O or S gauge loco, godspeed and enjoy.

This thread was, primarily,  about Lionel's products in S gauge, not the possibilities for high end customized sound in any gauge and my comments were addressing the Lionel products.  I accept that with effort, expense and time, you can produce really cool sounding locomotive effects in any gauge.  It's all about what you like and can afford in time and money.

@Landsteiner posted:

"But if you look at it as a ratio of frequency response to scale then smaller scales actually do very well with modern speakers such as Scale Sound Systems. "

I'm a physician and I'm pretty sure that hearing doesn't work that way .  I'm a human being not an oscilloscope.  Sound is almost, but not entirely subjective, to be sure.

I think you’ll find that folks that understand how acoustics, electronic audio circuits, and digital signals work, from a physics and engineering perspective, and that don’t have some other hearing impairment, are in violent agreement about what sounds good. Additionally, those characteristics that make something sound good are measurable and repeatable.

The industry has always been full of snake oil, like Monster cables and “speaker weights”, but scientists and those in the Audio Engineering Society believe in fact and measurement based sound quality standards.

If someone believes the capabilities of a half inch speaker in an N gauge loco can reproduce sound that is subjectively or objectively better than a two or three inch speaker in an O or S gauge loco, godspeed and enjoy.

Now our trains are not “audiophile” quality sound systems or million dollar professional audio systems. There are things, other than speaker size that affect the quality of the sounds they do make. First, not all speakers of the same size are created equal. Some use different materials, and are tuned for different resonances. Second, the quality and capabilities of the circuits used to amplify the sound vary widely, due to amplifier design types and power supply capacity. Last, the sound recording itself also has an impact on the result. One of the biggest impacts there is how the sound files were “mastered”.  Choosing a compression type, controlling dynamic range to match the limited capabilities of small speakers, and overall equalization can make quite a difference.

I’ve copied sounds off of older locos, adjusted them in a DAW and gotten much better results that a stock configuration.

Sorry for going off topic, but the statements I replied to were also, and do not tell the whole story.

@Landsteiner posted:

"But if you look at it as a ratio of frequency response to scale then smaller scales actually do very well with modern speakers such as Scale Sound Systems. "

I'm a physician and I'm pretty sure that hearing doesn't work that way .  I'm a human being not an oscilloscope.  Sound is almost, but not entirely subjective, to be sure.

We're talking past each other.  I was primarly responding to the comment that Lionel hadn't improved Railsounds during the last 10 years, from the perspective of the O and S gauge locos they make.  That's factually incorrect.   I wish that they felt they could profitably provide more variety of models in S gauge to please my S gauge brethren, for sure.  But Legacy is a very good RTR system for those who don't want to experiment with modifications, and DCC works real well for those who prefer it, no argument.  Whether one is inherently superior is entirely subjective to the desires and needs of the individual hobbyist.

If someone believes the capabilities of a half inch speaker in an N gauge loco can reproduce sound that is subjectively or objectively better than a two or three inch speaker in an O or S gauge loco, godspeed and enjoy.

This thread was, primarily,  about Lionel's products in S gauge, not the possibilities for high end customized sound in any gauge and my comments were addressing the Lionel products.  I accept that with effort, expense and time, you can produce really cool sounding locomotive effects in any gauge.  It's all about what you like and can afford in time and money.

Both of these models, one HO and one S produce lower frequency, broader frequency range, and have more accuracy than anything that I have ever objectively measured from RailSounds. If you think sound is almost always subjective, then we are definitely talking past each other, and I will let this go.

I will add a link to a whitepaper from JT Burke at Scale Sound Systems for those interested in really nerding out on reproducing sound in model trains. https://www.scalesoundsystems....9188adff97535673.pdf