2-10-0 Russian Decapod Frisco -w-Doghouse-

Just an FYI I asked Bachmann a question a few days ago and there response back was that they are phasing out the SoundValue decoder with the Econami SoundValue. And that the new Batch of 2-8-4 they just received have the Econami SoundValue in them.

Now back to the Bachmann 2-10-0. After running this model a lot now I think I need to comment more about this models sound quality. This is one of those models you have to hear in person. It is currently my best sounding loco.

Every time I run it I am in awe (Trying not to use WOW) of how crisp and clear the sounds are. Even the coal shoveling sound is great there is no question that this is someone shoving coal right next to you. I think this is because the samples are recorded, stored and played back uses 44,100Hz sample rate with no compression at 16Bit. Also the Chuffinty feature, rod noises and drift all sound and work great.

I have a fairly decent range of sound decoders to compare it against.
Besides the Blunimi and TSU-2 I also have MRC first runs and XL system sound decoders, QSI, Digitrax series 6 8Bit and 16Bit and a few series 7 sound decoders, 2x BLI par3 and 3x BLI par4. And 1 lonely MTH loco.

Now I can only compare it to what I own. I do not own a ESU decoder or a Rolling Thunder to pair with the Paragons(yet). The Paragons are only as good has their loaded samples so the ones I own vary in sound quality. This is also the case with the Digitrax sound decoders.


This did get me thinking, "Why do the review and demo clips online not come close to what I am hearing?" Hmm? lousy compression? I bet most videos are recorded using one of the lousy compression and not a lossless format. This goes for the TSU-2 and Paragon 3/4 videos I have watch also, not to mention you would need studio level recording equipment to do these decoders justice.

 

From what my source at Soundtraxx tells me, the decoder that Bachmann is transitioning to is actually just a plain Econami. Not a bad decoder at all. I just don’t like most of the whistles .

I find the BLI paragon systems in particular to be annoying because you have so little control over the background sounds. Like the blowdown, for example. Blowdown is a boiler sediment clean out process that’s normally done out in open country to avoid harming anyone or anything. It is visible in many film and video clips on the Internet. But the paragon blowdown comes on randomly. Like when the train is standing at a station platform, and the massive sideways steam jet takes out a couple of dozen passengers standing by the locomotive. Actually, you can turn the blow down on with F5, but only when the engine is standing still. It won’t come on when the engine is in motion. Which counteracts every rural blowdown operation I’ve ever seen in many years of riding on or behind steam.


Or the cylinder cocks. Nice to have, but you need to be able to turn them on when the locomotive would need them, not when some chip decides to turn them on. They’ve also persisted forever with just three whistles when everyone else now has at least 40 and usually more. And, personally, I’ve never really cared for any of their whistles. BLI says they’ve done all the work for you by programming these random sounds to come on so that you supposedly don’t have to worry about fooling with them. But if you’ve ever been around steam very much, the BLI sounds are irrationally occurring, like whack-a-mole just coming up whenever they feel like it instead of when they make sense.

I might need to buy a decapod with TCS sound to see what all the excitement is about. But, through industry people I know, they are relatively difficult to manipulate and have too few channels, if I have it right, that require some sounds to be turned off so others can be played rather than run them concurrently. Like the air pump quits running when you ring the bell or something like that.

By this time, I must have about 20 tsunami2-2 equipped engines on the layout. I’m very accustomed to them and probably will eventually get rid of the remaining non-Soundtraxx decoders.

 

I am still playing around with the deep Paragon settings. But the first thing I notice with Paragons models is since they load the sound sample per prototype the audio quality varies from model to model.

I have not heard any sounds cut out to play another sound on the WOW yet. Unlike the Digitrax Sound decoders with only 4 or 6 channels.

The other thing I noticed looking at the Bachmann 2-10-0 WOW 121 decoder is the Micro SD card. There is a sentence about it on the about page for the WOW decoder on the TCS site. This is what gives them the storage space to store the sound sample library. Chuffinty uses 600 to 1000 sound samples.

Now personally I would not replace any of my TSU-2s with WOWs. But if a locomotive happens to comes with a WOW then I'm good. And I may use a few WOWs for replacing some of my very old decoders. I am currently in the process of replace to oldies with TSU-2 and this have 4 more that will get TSU-2s soon.

 

The sound quality on my paragon decoders is fine, excellent. It’s the uncontrolled randomness of the so-called background sounds that I don’t like. Instead of you running the engine, it’s running you. If you have any experience with prototypical steam, the random sounds at the wrong moment will drive you insane.

Plus, especially in the paragon2 ones I have, I don’t really like the whistles that much. The one I dislike the least resembles a five chime to a degree, but has a permanent tail on the end of the whistle blast when you hold it down, two little pops that are not at all how the whippoorwilling Dixie hoggers of old practiced their whistle artistry. There’s a CV where you can supposedly get the tail off, but it only gets one of the short whistle pops off, leaves one there, which I find annoying to a high degree. They call this a playable whistle, but I find myself trying to get around all of the entrenched whistle stuff to get anything that I would consider acceptably playable. I know that all of this sounds eccentric, and it may be so today, but those old time southern engineers of 100 years ago played music on their whistles, and often had their own personal whistle installed for their run, if they didn’t already have their own personal engine which often was the case. On the little excursion railroad I worked on almost 40 years ago, the regular hogger was a just- retired L&N old head who had been on the railroad since the mid-1940s and had run nothing but steam early on. He had six or eight of his own whistles and would have a different one on that engine every time we’d go down there. And he was a concert master, would give us an old time railroad symphony playing every whistle like a master. I really miss those days.

 

This thread needs a photo...yes, need Tsunami2 or latest in these IMHO.

 

Looks great. Please report on life with the TCS. Like everyone else here, I already have the 1630 and the 1632, both carrying aftermarket tsunami2-2 decoders, and would like to get the 1624, but I’ve just heard too many squirrely things about the TCS. I waited so long for Bachmann to bring this beautiful engine back into the market, and then they do this. If it wasn’t for TCS I would’ve bought maybe three more new decapods. It appears Bachmann won’t use it anymore, along with the ill-conceived sound value, and are going to now utilize the sensible economic decoder.

 

There is one of these babies for sale on HOswap if anyone is interested. Here is the link:

[HOswap on IO] FS: Bachmann Frisco Decapod 2-10-0

GS

 

The 1624? How much?

 

FS: Bachmann Frisco Decapod 2-10-0

$150.00

GS

 

I have been meaning to give another update for a while now. But have been trying to resolve an issue with programing the WOW decoders with JMRI I have been having. I read where a lot of people do not have any issues. But I am. And I think it is my combination of equipment. So I cannot give the WOW a far comparison on the easy of programing until I get this issue resolved. But I can give an update on a few annoying times I discovered and features that can be a headache.
First off the version included with the 2-20-0 is version 4 not 4.6. So you do not get Chuffinity just Proto Chuff. But it does work the same as DDE.
Now the one annoying issue: If you start the bell ringing and switch to light mode or another one of the Bachmann functions pages. The bell stops! The announcement voice uses the same channel. This would be ok if the bell did not stop ringing. The fix for this is to optimize the function mappings. I have not played around with the automated bell settings yet this could also help.
Next discovery was The Route Whistle/Bell feature is a very powerful tool and most be handled with care. You can accidentally get different whistle set to different whistle functions. Now this is a feature. And I can see where some people can find a use for it. But if you accidentally change one it takes a bit of time to get it back.

Now if I can get JMRI working with my WOW, I can see where it would make configuring these decoders much easier.

I am still impressed with the sound quality coming out of this locomotive. Since it is using CD sample rates and lossless sound files. It also has high end audio playback. So the steam sounds are crisp and detailed.

On a side note I think I may have to start the process of replace my decoders that do not have a form of DDE in them with ones that do. It's become very noticeable because my layout does not have a flat main line. when I run a loco without DDE, it's like, what's wrong with the sound.