rtr12 posted:I am not as up to date on DCC as others around here, but I believe Loksound is going to offer decoders for O gauge, if they don't already have them available? Pretty sure I read something about this a while back. Even though I have DCS and Legacy, I find DCC interesting and want to give it a try someday. Looks like there could be many hours of fiddling with all the DCC settings, CV's and things, don't know what I am doing with it all, but I like to fiddle.
I plan to stick with 3 rail, but I imagine I will probably have to set up a separate loop of track as I don't think you can run DCC along with DCS and Legacy? Switching back and forth might be a pain, then again maybe not? Either way, I think it will be a lot of fun to experiment with. Most of my engines are MTH and PS3 (only have one PS2 and a couple Lionel engines). Technically I think I should be able to run all those under DCC as well.
To my ears O gauge has the best quality of sound. I don't know anything about the real engines so accuracy is not a concern for me as I wouldn't know if it was accurate or not? IMO, the HO (and smaller) stuff just does not have the speaker size to produce good sound, at least not any that I have heard so far. Sending the engine sounds to a stereo system or sub-woofer would definitely improve the sounds, no matter what size the engine. This is also something I find interesting. May have to check out Willygee's setup a little more closely (the link he provided was to a guitar effects device which I know nothing about?). Running multiple trains all tied to the same system would probably be an issue? Even so, I think something like this would definitely be worth while to have. May have to dig out the old Carver amp...
As for the O gauge sounds, I think Lionel has the best quality of sound, but MTH is quickly catching up. I have some newer MTH engines that sound just as good as Lionel's, some of the older ones are not quite as good. It is my understanding that both Lionel and MTH use actual recordings from the engines they are reproducing. I could be wrong, but I thought they had stated that in some of their promotions for new products? However, maybe they do not have a separate recording for every type of engine they make or the different horns used on various engines?
I knew that PS3 engines can be run with DCC, but did you say PS2 and Lionel engines can also? That would be great, since D)igital C)rap S)hoot hardly works right on my layout. I'll see if I can talk my dad into getting digitrax. For now, would the Bachmann EZCommand transformer work for running MTH stuff? I have one for the few HO/N engines I have...
Lionel does use real recordings of prime movers, but not horns. MTH does both.
