Any one know if its possible to add an additional speaker to a sound system (Lionel tmcc engine)? I'm looking to add sound to a dummy engine and was hoping i could tie into the sound system from the drive engine. Any help would or thoughts be great. Thanks! -Andrew
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You will have to keep the TOTAL speaker impedance the same as it originally was. That means you will have to replace BOTH speakers.
For example, if the original speaker was 8 ohms, you can run two 16 ohm speakers in parallel, or two 4 ohm speakers in series. The 16 ohm speaker is a better bet from a reliability standpoint. If one speaker is disconnected, there is not too much load on the sound board.
When you make connections for this dummy, make them so there can't be any short if un-coupled. The longer tether lead should have the ends protected incase it accidentally drops on the track, etc.
Don't ask me how I learned this one!!
Thats ah good point. That would mean i would have to always run those two engines hooked together. Maybe more of a pain in the but then it worth unless i add a load to the system when not hooked up. Something to think about. Thanks for the reply RoyBoy.
As far as the leads go i would use a micro connector thats plastic and plugs into the main engine. The issue now seems how to control loads on the sound system and keeping the ohms correct, Thanks for the heads up Engineer-Joe!
a single 16 ohm speaker will not harm an amplifier designed to run an 8 ohm speaker. You will just get somewhat less maximum volume.
You do not want to run a lower impedance speaker than design, but a higher impedance won't hurt the amplifier.
GRJ and I were typing at the same time.
Actually, it's not a problem to run without the dummy. You'll get lower sound volume, but one 16 ohm speaker won't be a problem for the RailSounds 8 ohm output. It's only running lower impedance that can overload things.
As Joe says, make the master have the female connector so it can't drop onto the rail, the male end is the dummy, much less potential for serious damage for that one.
Well, you asked for any thoughts...
You could put a transmitter in the main engine (like an FM wireless mic or Bluetooth audio transmitter) to broadcast the audio. Then, while the dummy would need power pickups, it could have a receiver and amplifier to play the sound without the hassle of a tether. The dummy could even be a pusher engine many feet away.
Another idea is to wirelessly transmit the audio to a home theater FM receiver or Bluetooth speaker pumping out hundreds of Watts. I've actually tried this and the prime mover sound shaking your train room (and the rest of your house for that matter) is nothing less than shock and awe.
There should be some archives on FM wireless that i did about a year ago. A complete game changer and still performing fantastic.Hearing your engines through a subwoofer and its own speaker gives it directional dimension..total realism. stan 2004 helped with the details..if your ever in southern maine,stop in.you will be impressed.
Those are some really cool ideas for wireless sound systems. I especially like the idea of a subwoofer.
GunRunnerJohn, i figured that would be the case. With out knowing what the Ohms of speaker are. Do you know if there is a standard for the railSounds ohms? Are they all 8 ohms outputs?
Stan2004 - Im intrigued by the wireless thing. Any thoughts to transmitter and receivers that i would use? Also would you happen to know of some small amplifier that would fit into what ever space is in the dummy engine. Im guessing i can add pickups to the engine if it doesn't have any?
The RS speakers are universally 8 ohms, at least all that I've seen from the originals to current Legacy. 
Thats some great info to have while moving forward with this project. Thanks John!
William 1,
After having some long conversations with Bill Ingraham (Willygee) there is a lot more to it. We talk engineer to engineer on the phone, Billy knows his electric engineering, especially reality sound production.
Man you should hear his engines sound systems, even thru the telephone they sound super cool. Billy has them running thru his big system, it sounds like you are
sitting inside a real engine, the sounds are that pure. I only wish they could miniaturize the required equipment. If Bill ever does it, he is going to be a very rich man. Every train owner will want his sound system.
PCRR/Dave
It's not massively involved to add a speaker to a dummy unit. I will admit that you can get varying results, depending on the exact implementation. I've added sound to a number of dummies, and recently added speakers to a locomotive with an extension from the tender. I've never ended up with worse sound, usually it ranges from noticeably better to really impressive.
Obviously, broadcasting to a real sound system like Dave is talking about might yield some impressive results, but that's way more complicated. Also, there's the issue of the design of the layout where it's running, not to mention what happens when you take your locomotive on the road.
One other thing of note when adding speakers. Make sure you have them phased correctly, all the + terminals together as well as all the - terminals. Also, a good baffle will do wonders for the sound, something as simple as a spray can lid hot glued over the speaker to seal the back side will greatly increase the sound quality and apparent bass when compared to the open speaker.
Remember, you have to match the impedance, so if you're going to have two speakers, they'll have to be 16 ohm in parallel or 4 ohm in series. I don't recommend the 4 ohm as a break in the tether or running without the dummy will result in no sound.
Stan2004 - Im intrigued by the wireless thing. Any thoughts to transmitter and receivers that i would use? Also would you happen to know of some small amplifier that would fit into what ever space is in the dummy engine. Im guessing i can add pickups to the engine if it doesn't have any?
The simplest transmitter would be those FM modules used to send MP3 player audio to your car FM radio. These are maybe $2-3 on eBay. The transmitter issue was discussed at length in previous threads as willygee mentions.
Previously the discussion was sending the sound to a home theater system. Obviously for a dummy engine the idea is to install a portable FM radio. But the devil's in the details. I've been working on another rolling-stock (not an engine) sound project which will use an MP3 player with speaker (3 Watts output). In my case the sound comes from an SDHC card loaded with MP3 files. The player is a 2" cube that runs about $6-7 on eBay free shipping from Asia.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261675...e=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Below is a photo of it dis-assembled into component parts. Let me be clear. I don't expect anyone else to go through this level of effort! But after your question, I recalled that this MP3 player includes an FM radio! So I tried it out today. The key is I could program in a station (frequency) and it would remember it between power cycles. I could program in the volume level and it would remember it between power cycles. In other words, the idea is I wanted to be sure you just apply power and it comes up in FM mode at the previous station and volume. It did.
So the idea is to apply 5V DC to the radio and off it goes. If I were doing it I'd simply use an AC-DC converter module (eBay) for about $3-4 free shipping to generate the 5V DC from track voltage. The interesting thing is the USB cable charges the battery and when you pull the USB cable the battery takes over which takes care of intermittent wheel/roller electrical issues.
The speaker has remarkable fidelity for the size - seems to be one of those newer rare-earth magnet coils. The volume is at least as loud as the MTH Protosound engines I have.
As others point out, the tether method is clearly the keep-it-simple approach...though it seems without an amplifier you won't get more overall sound output. I notice on eBay you can buy 3 Watt audio amplifier modules for $1 free shipping. So you just need a DC supply ($3-4 on eBay) that converts track AC, and a speaker of your choice.
I have some of those amplifier modules, they'd be a good choice. If you use the amplifier, you can probably stick with the 8 ohm speaker in the master and not sacrifice volume if you don't run with the slave.
That's a good point about running alone. This also puts the kibosh on the two 4-ohm series method since you'd have no audio without the slave speaker present.
And going the other way, the nice thing about the amplifier is you could have more than 1 slave each with amplifier/speaker so volume would increase proportional to number of engines...rather than audio power being split (inversely proportional to number of engines).
I'm liking the amplifier idea more and more Stan. Adding a little power module and the amp isn't a big issue. 
Id thought about doing that to my williams EMD E-8..Would be nice to add speaker in the B unit and End A unit..
Here is an interesting Dallee speaker page that I linked some time ago. It addresses the size issue in most cases.
I did a conversion to a MTH Gas Turbine that used the dual speaker. Frankly it did not sound much different. Could have been the acoustics of the tanker. Did have a baffle. Each individual speaker still gets the same lower current if you have to raise the speaker impedance.
So anything that can keep the same impedance speaker is a better choice in my opinion. G
The amplifier is a good option, it doesn't impact the primary installation, just adds more volume in the other unit(s).
Wow! So much information. I need to spend some time and find the parts to make this happen. Thanks for all the help and great information you guys have provided. I'll be I touch if I have any more questions. Thanks again!
I've been searching "adding speakers" treads for info. This one from 2014 was very interesting with a lot of great input. Questions I would like to add are: Where is the best place to hi-jack the sound from, in an MTH, lead A unit when using an amplifier and speaker in the trailing units? After completing a project like this and hi-jacking the sound off of the lead A units speaker, then connecting that into the trailing units amplifier, I've notice the sound isn't as "clean" as the original source. Is it because along with the sound is fluctuating wattage from the speaker working? If it is, is it possible to hi-jack the sound off of the circuit board before the amplifier, or if that would be too difficult, is there a component that can be added to the wires coming off the lead A units speaker that would clean up the signal before reaching the secondary amp? I am using Craig rechargeable mini speakers with Bluetooth or aux input that have an unbelievable sound quality when used with Bluetooth or an mp3 player plugged into them.
Easy way to add a speaker to a diesel . . .
Thanks Scrapiron, that looks like a political speaker, though. Impossible to clean the sound up from them. LOL
Dave Zucal posted:... hi-jacking the sound off of the lead A units speaker, then connecting that into the trailing units amplifier, I've notice the sound isn't as "clean" as the original source. Is it because along with the sound is fluctuating wattage from the speaker working?
Are you connecting the 2 speaker wires in the lead A to the AUX IN of your amplifier? What is the power source for the amplifier?
How does it sound if you disconnect the lead A speaker and only drive the trailing amplifier?
Is this PS2 5V, 3V, or PS3?
Stan2004, Yes the 2 speaker wires are plugged into the aux input. The speaker is battery powered. A charge last about 2 hours. Eventually I will and a 5 volt DC charging circuit from track power after I install pickup rollers. This is a PS-2, 3 volt board. The sound starts to become scratchy at about 3/4 volume. It's not extremely noticeable but I know it can be much better because of the quality of the sound that is produced out of these little speakers, from an un-amplified source, like an mp3 player. I believe the mini speaker's circuit is picking up the wattage driving the PS-2 speaker. Is there a way to filter that out of the line going into the aux input of the mini speaker so that I only have un-amplified signal? Or is it possible to solder 2 wires onto the PS-2 circuit board somewhere before the sound gets amplified?
I would not personally recommend attempting to tap into the audio on a PS/2 board. First off, the low level audio goes into an audio amplifier IC, so there's no place to really get to it without most likely creating more issues than you solve.
I was thinking it may be risky. Thank you for your input John. Do you know of a device that will dissipate the wattage and only allow signal to pass through so that I only have pure clean signal going into the aux input of the mini speaker?
I don't see the need to dissipate wattage. One of the issues may be the gross impedance mismatch between the PS/2 amplifier output and the aux amplifier input that is driving the secondary car.
Good point John. There may be an advantage then to going wireless with an FM transmitter to the FM cube speaker, or a bluetooth transmitter to the bluetooth in this speaker. I would rather not have the tether, but worry I would have to "pair" the bluetooth devices every time they were powered up. The FM may not be as clean as Bluetooth but at least they would begin to work upon power up.
So will the charger circuit operate while the amplifier is active? Most DC-powered mini-amplifiers connect one side of the audio input to DC- or local ground. If you use a bridge rectifier to convert track AC to DC, that audio input pin is 1 diode away from track voltage. The problem is neither side of the PS2-3V audio amplifier signal is at local ground. So if you connect 1 of the 2 speaker wires to you mini-amplifier when it is powered from a bridge-rectifier, I think this is akin to a short (one diode) between the speaker output wiring and the chassis which causes bad things to happen like blowing up the PS2-3V audio chip.
Next issue. The PS2-3V audio amp is of the so-called class-D ilk which means it is pulsing at a high frequency (250 kHz). The speaker essentially filters out these pulses so you only "hear" the audible content. As to that scratch sound, I'd want to put if up on an oscilloscope but what I'm thinking is the coupling capacitor in your mini-amp is creating spikes that somehow affects its behavior. I think virtually all mini-amps have coupling capacitors. If you feed digital pulses like from a class-D audio amp into a coupling cap it will generate spikes after the cap and into the amplifier circuit. If this is what's happening, you can filter/smooth these pulses using a low-pass filter. There is some math involved and if I were doing it I'd want to confirm this is indeed what's going on...but a filter might be a few inductors/capacitors and about $1 or so.
I realize this doesn't help you, but if I were doing it I'd consider an audio-transformer (a couple bucks). A transformer breaks the DC connection so you don't have the issue with grounds (unless you stay with battery-only power in the trailing engine). And since you're only coupling the low-level signal (rather than Watts of power) it gives a lot of flexibility in designing a filter to whack the class-D 250 kHz pulses from the PS2-3V amplifier chip.
Note that if you pursue the FM (or Bluetooth) wireless-tetherless approach, you still have the issue of those class-D pulses feeding your transmitter. Not all transmitters are equal since if I recall correctly the wireless FM transmitter mentioned earlier that willygee used worked just fine when driven by the speaker wires in a PS2 engine.
Thanks Stan, you may have just saved me a PS-2 board. I will stay away from charging from track power. It looks like a lot of research needs to be done here so I'll just have to be content with the sound I have. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it a 7. My main concern was for video shots as the A-B-B-A rolled by the camera, to give all units sound as they rolled by.
stan2004 posted:So will the charger circuit operate while the amplifier is active? Most DC-powered mini-amplifiers connect one side of the audio input to DC- or local ground. If you use a bridge rectifier to convert track AC to DC, that audio input pin is 1 diode away from track voltage. The problem is neither side of the PS2-3V audio amplifier signal is at local ground. So if you connect 1 of the 2 speaker wires to you mini-amplifier when it is powered from a bridge-rectifier, I think this is akin to a short (one diode) between the speaker output wiring and the chassis which causes bad things to happen like blowing up the PS2-3V audio chip.
Next issue. The PS2-3V audio amp is of the so-called class-D ilk which means it is pulsing at a high frequency (250 kHz). The speaker essentially filters out these pulses so you only "hear" the audible content. As to that scratch sound, I'd want to put if up on an oscilloscope but what I'm thinking is the coupling capacitor in your mini-amp is creating spikes that somehow affects its behavior. I think virtually all mini-amps have coupling capacitors. If you feed digital pulses like from a class-D audio amp into a coupling cap it will generate spikes after the cap and into the amplifier circuit. If this is what's happening, you can filter/smooth these pulses using a low-pass filter. There is some math involved and if I were doing it I'd want to confirm this is indeed what's going on...but a filter might be a few inductors/capacitors and about $1 or so.
I realize this doesn't help you, but if I were doing it I'd consider an audio-transformer (a couple bucks). A transformer breaks the DC connection so you don't have the issue with grounds (unless you stay with battery-only power in the trailing engine). And since you're only coupling the low-level signal (rather than Watts of power) it gives a lot of flexibility in designing a filter to whack the class-D 250 kHz pulses from the PS2-3V amplifier chip.
Note that if you pursue the FM (or Bluetooth) wireless-tetherless approach, you still have the issue of those class-D pulses feeding your transmitter. Not all transmitters are equal since if I recall correctly the wireless FM transmitter mentioned earlier that willygee used worked just fine when driven by the speaker wires in a PS2 engine.
Here is a link to my setup to what Stan2004 is referring to. It is an absolute game changer.
Thank U Willygee. Looks interesting. I will study that tread in the morning over my cup of coffee and get back to all tomorrow. Father's Day has me exhausted.
I think I'd try something simpler (in my mind) first... I'd find the sound file for the engine in question on the MTH website. I'd take the ADPCM program from Mark DiVecchio, chop out the sounds of interest and turn them with perhaps Audacity or something similar to MP3 clips say ... load these onto the phone or similar blue tooth device -- and then put a small blue tooth speaker in the dummy, etc...
The big issue: sounds under manual control. Another is the clips will never be spot on to what you really want ... but if you get tired of this approach, then it wouldn't be too much to add more computer control to the sounds.
(for example it would not be too hard to play the start up-->idle engine clips in sequence and have the idle clip loop until further notice from a computer)
Thank you for your reply Severn. I have done what you mentioned for single modern dummy engines and created a lot of cool sound tracks with Audacity with recordings of real trains I recorded. This set up is for older A-B-B-A diesels where all units will have the same sound as the lead engine. With bluetooth your limited to one speaker per one transmitter. What I was looking for with my post, was a cleaner pre-amplified sound off the circuit board or a way to get rid of the amplification in the line into a mini amplified speaker. The mini speakers are picking up spikes when the sound is turned up in the lead engine more then half way because output is too strong for the aux input of the mini speakers. Now in WillyGee's project there is a mention in one of your post of installing a 10K ohm resistor in each speaker line before the FM transmitter. Can you tell me what the purpose of doing that is?
I suspect the 10k resistor was to attempt to match the high impedance of the amp input and prevent overdriving the input stage.
I looked at this once before, some of the DCC folks have a line out... but you're not running DCC. Grabbing it off the speaker wire(s) will be after whatever is they do to it. I recall looking at the sound out from willyg i think on audacity and trying to compare it to the raw MTH file of the same... and thinking the lows were gone (or reduced). Then again, I'm not really an expert and could have just been making the data fit the (pre) conclusion.
I'm all for it the idea btw... totally on board. I like the work that's being done to and the ideas... But it's a closed architecture for both lionel and mth in this area even though (some of us) managed to crack aspects of the mth sound file.
gunrunnerjohn posted:I suspect the 10k resistor was to attempt to match the high impedance of the amp input and prevent overdriving the input stage.
And also to protect the PS3 board in case of a short. The 10k and honestly i may have used 100k(its been quite a while) come right of the speaker leads(yellow and white) of the host engine(premier gp35) to a shielded 2 wire that makes its way back to the unpowered engine with the Wireless fm transmitter. I use a button to turn on the fm unit through one of the fans. The shell on the unpowered unit tips right off so i can charge the 2 aa eneloops which btw last hours and hours.Thought about a recharge circuit but not needed.
Thank You John. Willygee, how is your FM transmitter powered? I ordered a few of the rechargeable FM cube receivers to give them a try and do away with my tethered speakers. Maybe the FM transmitter is able to deal with the amplified sound better then the mini speaker circuit.
Dave Zucal posted:Thank You John. Willygee, how is your FM transmitter powered? I ordered a few of the rechargeable FM cube receivers to give them a try and do away with my tethered speakers. Maybe the FM transmitter is able to deal with the amplified sound better then the mini speaker circuit.
2 aa nimh eneloops which btw last hours and hours.
Some early links as i was building this:
https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...d-at-loco-is-working
Severn posted:I looked at this once before, some of the DCC folks have a line out... but you're not running DCC. Grabbing it off the speaker wire(s) will be after whatever is they do to it. I recall looking at the sound out from willyg i think on audacity and trying to compare it to the raw MTH file of the same... and thinking the lows were gone (or reduced). Then again, I'm not really an expert and could have just been making the data fit the (pre) conclusion.
I'm all for it the idea btw... totally on board. I like the work that's being done to and the ideas... But it's a closed architecture for both lionel and mth in this area even though (some of us) managed to crack aspects of the mth sound file.
The above is correct...there is enough sound file in the GP35
http://mthtrains.com/search/20-20200-2
where the sounds once processed through the 
give you the full diesel low sound and feel..like you were in the yard. Running as i post this
I tried using a RK SD70ace ps3....not enough file for good sounds..i lucked out with my first try, the GP35 PS3.
Willy Gee, you don't use a cap across the wires output do you?
I believe that would kill the low end?
Engineer-Joe posted:Willy Gee, you don't use a cap across the wires output do you?
I believe that would kill the low end?
Joe you are right and i might have at the ps3 speaker terminals..its been well over 2 years and everything has worked so well i haven't been in there
or if i didn't put a cap in i have been relying on my subwoofer to filter everything but the lows.**** it sounds good though.
So the 10K resistors are protecting the engines circuit board if something should go wrong. Do you think they may also help to reduce some of the amplification to the FM transmitter and help keep the sound cleaner? Can this protection also be accomplished with diodes so that power can only travel one way, out from the speaker?
Dave..Using my system the ps3 engine speaker wired to the transmitter is still active. It is a member engine of a 5 unit MU. The sound settings on this host engine are :eng vol 40..all other sounds are set to 0 volume. My lead engine: eng vol 0, bell 100, horn 70, cab chatter off etc. In the end..if you had your eyes closed you would think you were in the yard. Sound quality excellent...volumes can be loud to wow the spectators or room filling scale sound.Keep in mind this is DCS which allows all this tailoring.
In the middle of this older video is the 5 unit power(Guilford and PanAm) using the fm transmitter. 4th engine(powered) has the ps3 wired to the 5th engine(unpowered) fm transmitter.
You sold me on the FM, Willygee. Got everything ordered. Hope I don't get kicked out of the house when I put it to use. One big advantge over the bluetooth is the unlimited number of speaker/receivers that can be used. What is the range of these transmitters?
GRJ, In your comment on the resistors, "overloading the input stage" were you referring to the input into the FM transmitter?
One thing I've noticed when I use a bluetooth transmitter with a bluetooth receiver, is that the speaker in the engine also becomes a microphone and will also transmit anything it hears.
The big advantage of the bluetooth (or similar) is in theory you can have it under complete computer control ... if you like that sort of thing. The big disadvantage? You'll never be in sync with the master engine...
But perhaps you can get close.
So vague-ish ideas, but untried ... if you are using DCS, you can use Mark Divecchios RTC program (or pieces of it) to possibly continuously poll the engines state and get some sense of what it is doing -- or if you were just using it (RTC) as the control -- you would in theory know what the engine has been commanded to do -- and therefore any slave sound systems could be put into the right state by the computer mirroring the master engine ...
With Lionel LCS you could maybe watch the bus for commands, do something similar... maybe. The sensor track would send a status packet so to speak but I don't think (well i'm fairly sure but this is from memory) -- that it has the complete state of the engine that's run over it...
Still, such info might help somehow also...
Dave Zucal posted:You sold me on the FM, Willygee. Got everything ordered. Hope I don't get kicked out of the house when I put it to use. One big advantge over the bluetooth is the unlimited number of speaker/receivers that can be used. What is the range of these transmitters?
GRJ, In your comment on the resistors, "overloading the input stage" were you referring to the input into the FM transmitter?
One thing I've noticed when I use a bluetooth transmitter with a bluetooth receiver, is that the speaker in the engine also becomes a microphone and will also transmit anything it hears.
I'm 22 ft x 9 ft...no sound drops.
Five atlas engines. The SW's have the same sound system and Railsound 4 cards. There is enough difference that the sound develop beats/pulsing.
Mouse over click on the triangle.
Severn posted:So vague-ish ideas, but untried ... if you are using DCS, you can use Mark Divecchios RTC program (or pieces of it) to possibly continuously poll the engines state and get some sense of what it is doing -- or if you were just using it (RTC) as the control -- you would in theory know what the engine has been commanded to do -- and therefore any slave sound systems could be put into the right state by the computer mirroring the master engine ...
I would guess that another stationary spare PS board could be programmed into the train and would throttle exactly the way the train does. It would be connected directly to a sound system.
That's what I used to do in HO. I only ran one train though!
Mike CT posted:Five atlas engines. The SW's have the same sound system and Railsound 4 cards. There is enough difference that the sound develop beats/pulsing.
No surprise there, all of the sound systems are being independently driven by their own TMCC receiver. What's being discussed here is multiple speakers, a horse of a different color.
The point I made: Each speaker with it's own drive develops a different effect. Same sound slightly out of sink develops beats.
I'm sure that's true to some extent Mike, but speakers having the exact same audio drive will certainly not be as out of sync as a bunch of speakers all being independently driven by different sound systems, that was the point I made. 
I've put speakers in multiple units, and they do enhance the sound effect, even though there is only one sound source, so it will have a positive effect on the perceived sound, I suspect we can agree on that point.
I've noticed with a bluetooth set up, there is a slight delay, giving an echo effect which sounds kind of cool with whistle and horn. Is there a delay with Fm? Also, how can one keep the speaker from becoming a microphone? The speaker in my engine is picking up track noise. If I remove the bluetooth speaker and take it up stairs I can even hear the TV that's on near the layout.
Dave Zucal posted:I've noticed with a bluetooth set up, there is a slight delay, giving an echo effect which sounds kind of cool with whistle and horn. Is there a delay with Fm?
No delay or echo..some multipathing minimal distant thunder type noise but you had to strain to hear it. Subwoofer hi pass filters minimize most of that.
Also, how can one keep the speaker from becoming a microphone? The speaker in my engine is picking up track noise. If I remove the bluetooth speaker and take it up stairs I can even hear the TV that's on near the layout.
My project on the subject... MTH E8B frame.
CentralFan1976 posted:My project on the subject... MTH E8B frame.
Not sure what I'm seeing. Is this the basis for a wired or wireless system?
Dave Zucal posted:I've noticed with a bluetooth set up, there is a slight delay, giving an echo effect which sounds kind of cool with whistle and horn. Is there a delay with Fm? Also, how can one keep the speaker from becoming a microphone? The speaker in my engine is picking up track noise. If I remove the bluetooth speaker and take it up stairs I can even hear the TV that's on near the layout.
The tolerable delay will depend on the application. Clearly for Bluetooth speakers for home theater, there will be lip-sync issues if the audio delay is too large or if the video system does not allow delay compensation. Actually I think the video delay adjustment was for the digital delay for external Dolby decoders which has to work pretty hard. OTOH, Bluetooth mini-amps for playing MP3 audio-only from an iPod or whatever seem less demanding on delay. The FM transmitter and receiver are 100% analog (no digital processing/memory) so no perceptible delay.
I understand what you're saying about the speaker becoming a mic, but is there actual signal "gain"? In other words if you are sitting in the room with TV, does the Bluetooth speaker make the TV louder? What's implemented here is a brute-force "splitter" with a Y connection. In other words the two outputs (the speaker and the transmitter input) are just tied together. In an engineered-splitter as used in communications systems, the outputs have some electrical isolation so they do not affect other loads. I don't think it's worth the bother in this case.
I added the two 10K ohm resistors to the line going from the main engine's speaker to the transmitter. What a difference in the sound quality. It totally eliminated the distortion caused by the amplifier. Not only that, the speaker no longer works like a microphone picking up room sounds and track sounds coming up through the wheels. You were right John and Willy Gee, the resistors do prevent the amp from over driving the transmitter. Thanks everyone for your input. On to the next project.
stan2004 posted:CentralFan1976 posted:My project on the subject... MTH E8B frame.
Not sure what I'm seeing. Is this the basis for a wired or wireless system?
These are two Lionel GP38 (non-turbo 567) Trainsounds boards, with volume pots (center) and two big Tang Band speakers.
The engine sounds are powered by the track, and rev up and down with the Hall effect sensors near the wheel with the magnet ring.
Stan2004, thanks for your input. The TV was only about 10 feet from my testy track where the engine's speaker was picking up the sound. Now with the resistors, no more microphone effect.
Dave Zucal posted:Stan2004, thanks for your input. The TV was only about 10 feet from my testy track where the engine's speaker was picking up the sound. Now with the resistors, no more microphone effect.
Dave..glad to see you are trying the bluetooth approach. What bluetooth protocol are you using? At one time i thought of trying bluetooth and 900mhz wireless( like headsets use) but alas the FM transmitter just plain works well. I also run some edited sound clips( Audacity) from my laptop to a large portable bluetooth speaker.
I shall follow your progress with vehemence and zeal
Dave Zucal posted:I added the two 10K ohm resistors to the line going from the main engine's speaker to the transmitter. What a difference in the sound quality. It totally eliminated the distortion caused by the amplifier. Not only that, the speaker no longer works like a microphone picking up room sounds and track sounds coming up through the wheels. You were right John and Willy Gee, the resistors do prevent the amp from over driving the transmitter. Thanks everyone for your input. On to the next project.
Did you have to add the MXR Octaver pedal to get the low frequency?
Engineer-Joe posted:Dave Zucal posted:I added the two 10K ohm resistors to the line going from the main engine's speaker to the transmitter. What a difference in the sound quality. It totally eliminated the distortion caused by the amplifier. Not only that, the speaker no longer works like a microphone picking up room sounds and track sounds coming up through the wheels. You were right John and Willy Gee, the resistors do prevent the amp from over driving the transmitter. Thanks everyone for your input. On to the next project.
Did you have to add the MXR Octaver pedal to get the low frequency?
Yes..with out it sounds didn't get into the 60hz range..more like 300hz using a frequency app on my smartphone. Off i went to my favorite music store (Guitar Center) ran my problem by those guys, they said try this the "octave rig" and if it doesn't work bring it back for a refund. It did the trick..and it has multiple settings to dial end as you please.
Edit..oops this question may have been directed for dave
Joe, I ordered an MxR and can't wait til it gets here. WillyG, the transmitter is an TS-BT35F03 supports A2DP stereo profile. I think its made by I-WAVE. I'm not happy with it because it takes to many attempts to get it to pair. I like the SAGA (SAG2023BT) much better. Pairs easy and transmits much further. The frequency is not listed. There is about a 1 second delay with both. I will be swapping the Bluetooth out when the FM gets here.
Thanks for answering.
Years ago I connected my One Gauge Challenger to a small home speaker directly. The sound was full and rich. Very deep lows.
So I'm just wondering if something is getting lost and where exactly in the chain.
I bought the same transmitters that Willy Gee got and never did anything with them. Every time I've done an install, I've completed it without considering hooking up a transmitter. I think I'd like to hook it up as a stationary decoder and just add it to a train. That way the board could be hooked directly to the sound system without any signal loss of a transmitter. If the decoder is built into a consist, it should react with the same throttle positions. The part I don't like, is I can't figure out how to achieve the full effects of the train entering and leaving the given area of the layout. I got rid of my large mixing console now so again, I'm not attempting this one either.
I feel I'm getting lazy trying new stuff. It's fun to watch others try out stuff though. It's great to have knowledgeable people here to help.
Dave Zucal posted:Joe, I ordered an MxR and can't wait til it gets here. WillyG, the transmitter is an TS-BT35F03 supports A2DP stereo profile. I think its made by I-WAVE. I'm not happy with it because it takes to many attempts to get it to pair. I like the SAGA (SAG2023BT) much better. Pairs easy and transmits much further. The frequency is not listed. There is about a 1 second delay with both. I will be swapping the Bluetooth out when the FM gets here.
Nice range...i love this stuff
willygee posted:Engineer-Joe posted:Dave Zucal posted:I added the two 10K ohm resistors to the line going from the main engine's speaker to the transmitter. What a difference in the sound quality. It totally eliminated the distortion caused by the amplifier. Not only that, the speaker no longer works like a microphone picking up room sounds and track sounds coming up through the wheels. You were right John and Willy Gee, the resistors do prevent the amp from over driving the transmitter. Thanks everyone for your input. On to the next project.
Did you have to add the MXR Octaver pedal to get the low frequency?
Yes..with out it sounds didn't get into the 60hz range..more like 300hz using a frequency app on my smartphone. Off i went to my favorite music store (Guitar Center) ran my problem by those guys, they said try this the "octave rig" and if it doesn't work bring it back for a refund. It did the trick..and it has multiple settings to dial end as you please.
Edit..oops this question may have been directed for dave
I would have never thought of going to Guitar Center for something like this? Pretty good idea. I usually just go there to drool over the Les Paul's and wish I would have kept the guitar I had in 7th grade and learned how to really play it instead of just fiddling with it.
I will have to go back and look into some of the sound stuff there. I do know they have a lot of it, but I have no idea what most of it is for? Will have to start asking questions while there!
We need our stuff to sound like this. About 10 min 15 sec into video if it doesn't take you there automatically
Engineer-Joe posted:We need our stuff to sound like this. About 10 min 15 sec into video if it doesn't take you there automatically
Coincidentally a while back ,10:00 in the video i recorded the NS SD70...ran it through Audacity and use the clip for sidetrack idling sounds. I have a folder full of choice sound clips from You Tube and Sound Dogs.
You are the man!
( well today....)
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