Hi Marker,
You can go separate DCC decoders for sound and motor control; however, understand that sound-only decoders are pretty much a thing of the past from the tier 1 sound decoder manufacturers simply because these vendors have improved their motor control from the early sound decoder days and these sound decoder suppliers are doing some great things when it comes syncing the sound with the motor control, like “auto-notching” from TCS, so you lose this with separate sound and motor control decoders. You can still go this route of separate decoders if you want but understand that you will be getting an “extra” motor control in the sound decoder whether you want it or not such as the case if you use a separate HO sound decoder for the sound portion.
Also, programming becomes a nightmare since you would either have to add a switch to disable one decoder while programming the other when using the same address for both decoders within one locomotive or use two different addresses and then consist the two motor and sound decoders with one locomotive – another logistics headache. In my opinion, you are just better off using an all-in-one combo motor/sound decoder right from the get-go if onboard sound is what you are after. Pricey, I know, but the alternative is not worth it.
Also, with the dual motor vertical drives, I find that they have jackrabbit speeds if the motors are wired in parallel as they come from the factory, but behave very nicely when wired in series. However, understand you basically cut your top speed in half since each motor is getting only half the motor control voltage. Therefore, Atlas or MTH dual motor vertical drive locos will max out at about 45-50 Scale MPH but have very nice slow speed. You can experiment to see what works for you.
Scott K
Austin, TX
