MTH Sound - improving?

The sound hasn't changed much if at all between PS-2 and PS-3 to my ear Sam. I have both PS-2/3 engines and I'm not slamming the product but MTH still needs to step up their game in the sound department In my opinion. 

In those cases where I have a similar P2 & P3 engine, I think the P2 sounds better. But then of course my wife would challenge my hearing anyway.

 

Steve

 

MTH really needs to step up on the sound.  This is technology in reach and, personally, I would be quite willing to pay more for an engine if it had great sound.

At the beginning of PS3, I first thought PS2 sounded better. Now as the newer PS3's are being released I do think the sound has been improving. I have all diesels and only one Lionel Legacy engine, but I really do think the MTH sound is catching up at least in the newest engines. I have not tried to upgrade any of the sound files in the MTH engines I have. May give that a try on one of these nice wintry days that will soon be coming our way in the next few months.

I just bought a ge evo cause I didn't want to spend the cash on a lionel . I ran it  3 times around the track and sold It..The sound quality was flat out horrible I know they made another sound set for it but it's not close to legacy ..My mth dash 9 from 2000 had better sound . lionel just whoops mth on the es44s plastic or diecast 

I have to say that Lionel still has the corner on sound.  It's not that MTH sound is really bad, but Lionel really has come with their A-game in the sound arena.

 

Are you inquiring about sound QUALITY, or sound ACCURACY?

I think MTH offers a fine product, but the sound is "tinny."

 

Steam is the worst offender. Not every steam engine has a dynamo, yet every MTH steam engine I have has this sound effect. The chuff can bee summed up in four syllables..."her-kee-jer-kee."

 

Of course, the best of both worlds would be the great detail found on MTH diesels coupled with Lionel's sound system, but I digress.

 

At the end of the day, it really comes down to each individual's ears...to mine, Lionel's sound far surpasses MtH. 

 

There is no comparison when it comes to sound from Lionel. MTH Has a long way to go when it comes to the sound dept. 

 

This is one reason I have not bought any MTH for awhile. There are several others but now is not the time to discuss it. 

Further, given the choice between two identical engines, I would choose Lionel because of the rich, deep sound.

I have a GEVO also from 2 or so years ago, sound not so good. I got the MTHRRC #2013 model (same as GEVO only MTH colors) last year and the sound is much improved in that one, compared to the first one anyway.

 

However, I have to go along with all the others that Lionel still has the best sound. To my ears anyway.

 

Hot Water, I think sound quality is the issue here. At least that's what I am talking about. I don't know enough to comment on accuracy.

HW - I would think most would welcome an improvement in quality and accuracy would be the proverbial icing on the cake! 

We all owe MTH (and to some extent K-Line) a debt of gratitude for helping raising the bar. Lionel got the message and now their sounds are tremendous. Looks like we need MTH to now leap frog back in front, or at least catch up.

 

 

 

In my original post I asked if anyone has personally talked with MTH people about this. I'm thinking Barry B, Marty F, Dave and Ted Hikel for example.  These fellas are certainly aware of the vastly overwhelming comments of Lionel's superior sound for the past several years as are some of Mr Wolfe's people.

Am curious if MTH sees this as a problem and is working on improving it?

As Dave F above stated - he hasn't bought any MTH engines for awhile now due to this. In fact, I think Dave has sold off quite a few of his MTH pieces for this reason. I only have two remaining MTH steamers left and actually, one is not MTH but a K-Line scale Hudson with a PS2 conversion. The other is a RK Ten-wheeler. Sadly, they both have the same chuff...

The reason I asked was, a manufacturer may just have the absolute, most spectacular sound reproduction system, but if the "sounds" themselves are incorrect for THAT specific railroad's steam locomotive model,,,,,,,,,then what? 

The MTH steam sounds are STILL the reason I sold off my PS2 engines and refuse to buy any PS3 steam engines. Maybe they should concentrate on that instead of wi-fi and smart phone apps. I'm not buying any of it.

I definitely see a difference in my newer GE Evo's compared to my older one as far as volume of sound.

I own more MTH than Lionel, but I think Lionel sound quality is more realistic, at least to my ear, but I’m no expert! I’m sure the speakers are one of the reasons. I would like to see more focus spent on sound accuracy and quality.



Does anyone remember those early steam sound attempts? I'm not talking before the early 80's. Locomotive sound was, at best, very generic and sounded more like static. bells and whistles were ok for the day. At the time, I think most of us were happy to finally have sound! Back then, I was only familiar with Lionel and Williams, and compared to what's available today, it was horrible. Overall, I think we’re really lucky these days.

There's a lot of R&D work/money involved here producing these trains.  Tooling, electronics, software, firmware, etc, etc.  I don't know how Large MTH is compared to Lionel when it comes to , Sales, revenue, staff, etc, etc.  I'm just wondering if MTH has the resources to put into better sounds.  We've all been complaining about MTH sounds now for how many years? Complaining about the lack of new models(cost of tooling being a factor here for sure).   

 

Not saying MTH is hard up or going out of business, just wondering if Lionel resources are a heck of a lot larger and that's the reason they kick butt in the sounds department? Or, maybe Lionel is for the most part focused on O when MTH has stakes in G, and HO dividing the R&D money elsewhere?

 

Being private companies I'm sure we'll never know.  Will MTH ever get around to better sounds, I'm sure someday.  Just not as fast as we would like it.

 

 

MTH has plenty of money to spend on making new European trains. They choose to concentrate on other things. Until they really feel a big loss in sales, they don't really have a need to quiet those of us who complain about their sound.

Personally I'm not a fan of Lionel's sound. I think there's too much bass in their steam engines and not all steam engines sound like the same. To me it's almost like the kid driving down the street wit nothing but bass coming out. I like MTH's sound. It's more crisp to my ears.

Also Lionel will never make two rail stuff so I'm really not worried about it.

Ralph

Mth certainly has the best "hooter whistle" as well as the in and out of sync articulated chuff sounds.

 

 * Not a bash* To my ears the aside from the lack of "fullness", its hard for me to describe, but I can here the abrupt "start" and "stop" of each individual sound from MTH. I.E. each chuff starts and the cuts off. 

 

I feel it has to due with the nature of the electronics producing the sound, but I'm no expert.

 

The last MTH loco I had was the Railking Allegheny at times the instant the whistle was pressed it would interrupt the chuff for a spilt second.

 

Lionels sounds seem more natural and overlap each other, MTH sounds all seem to occur seperately, somewhat like playing sounds effects through a keyboard.

 

Maybe its Neil Youngs fault, he must know something about sound.

 

 

Rick, I think the abrupt chuff stop is intentional to coincide with the abrupt smoke puff. MTH uses dynamic braking of the fan motor much like GRJ (and others like myself) has done with his Super Chuffer board. It gives the appearance of distinct puffs to a higher speed than a fan unit that spins free after the smoke pulse ends.

 

As for sound quailty, sounds are way down on my list of priorities when selecting an engine. Detail and accuracy trumps sound for me and MTH engines on average have an edge on Lionel excluding their new Vision series.

Plus the sounds are there if you improve the speakers. Much easier and cheaper to replace the speakers than add detail to these engines.

 

Pete

Guess I will be viewed as the crazy one here, but...

I'm a diesel guy (only own one steam engine).  My present roster consists primarily of MTH PS-2 & PS-3 products, followed by AtlasO.  I dumped all of my Lionel TMCC/RailSounds-equipped engines over the past few years because IMO they simply didn't measure up in terms of sound quality (or details...but that's another debate).

Then, with all the wonderful comments and rave reviews I've been reading about Lionel's Legacy sounds for the past few years here on the Forum, I finally decided last year to buy an F-3 ABA set, and a GP9.

Sorry, but I just can't understand for the life of me what makes the Legacy diesel sounds so significantly better.  With all the hype over Legacy sounds I was expecting to be blown away, but I wasn't...and in fact with all the build-up, I would say I'm even a bit disappointed.  Don't get me wrong, I think the sounds are good, but IMO they are on par with MTH, not superior.

Steam, maybe.  I can't comment on that.  But diesels, I just don't buy it.  So go ahead, tell me I'm nuts.  I can take it!!

Good Morning

 

I agree with joeyA, To my untrained ear, the MTH diesel sounds are more accurate and equal to lionel. MTH steam sounds, engine sounds(chuff) leave a lot to be desired(sounds like radio static) and that darn steam escaping sound that I cannot tone down is really bad, sounds like more radio static. Wish they would replace that with a steam generator sound.  And since I like high speed Steam passenger trains nobody does that sound well anymore. Early QSI is the only one that did that very well.

Of course this is just my take on this subject.

 

Thank you for letting me vent

Clem k 

You're nuts!

 

You should listen to the Lionel Legacy E8's for some really great diesel sounds, it's like being there.

Compairing  mth to lionel in sound is not even close its like a kraco radio for your car vs a alpine ..  Now if want to argue price or detail in some cases you have a fight there.. I was at a trainshop last week and they had the up6000 twinstack set and I have to say what good looking set and the price was nice too.

Hot Water makes a good point about accuracy vs. sound quality. There's no doubt in my mind that Legacy sound quality is better, especially in larger engines where there's room for larger speakers in enclosures. I don't find it to be the vast gap that some others do, but I can hear a difference. Of course, I've got a minor high-frequency hearing loss due to some close encounters with small arms, so others can probably hear more difference than I can. 

 

Some of the Proto-3 units are short on volume. One advantage of Proto-2 was the high sound levels you could get, which was useful in a club or museum environment where you have several trains going at once on a large layout. My Proto-3 engines have plenty of volume for home use, but they get kind of lost in the museum environment. I'm told this is an individual quirk, that some of them have plenty of volume, but all of mine achieve much lower sound levels than my Proto-2 engines.

 

Accuracy is another thing. A while back on this forum there was a long thread about the three-cylinder sound of the UP 4-12-2. A consensus was formed that the downloadable MTH sound file for that engine was much more realistic than the Legacy sound. This is the sound file that MTH made available to replace the one that came in the engine. I have that sound file in my 4-12-2 and it really does capture the eccentric chuff of the third cylinder. This also points up a huge advantage of Proto-2 and 3 - you can download a new sound file and install it yourself.

 

MTH's emphasis on the Euro market was cited as a reason for the lack of progress on sound. The MTH Euro sounds are fantastic. I love the high-pitched, shrill Euro whistle and the French-language platform announcements. The Swiss electrics even have cab chatter in Schwyzerdeutsch, a Swiss-German dialect spoken in Switzerland.

Aha, I think I get it now.  I needed to purchase the "RIGHT" Legacy engines (i.e. E8's) to experience the superior-quality sounds that are so much better than PS-2 & PS-3 diesels.  And here I was thinking that ALL Legacy diesel sounds (F3's and Geeps included) were discernibly better!

 

Darn it GRJ, now I REALLY have buyer's remorse about spending approximately $1,200 or so for the "WRONG" Legacy diesels!!!

I do too, to me the quality also seems better on the newer ones. My original GEVO is pretty 'tinny' as others have said, so I think the quality is also improving. I have never tried to change the sound files in an MTH engine, but I may try it on my original GEVO this winter. I have the DAP Demo version form last year and I think it's the newest, but have not run it yet and don't know about it's sound. The MTHRRC version is definitely improved though.

In terms of diesels, I have to say PS3 and Legacy is about equal. I do like the Legacy diesels with the sequence control feature, though.

 

As for steam, however, the PS3 chugging and bell sounds I think are the most noticeable improvements on steam engines. I still really like the feature to download any sound file you want, that hasn't changed fortunately.

 

The whistles....well, some are hit and miss. Regardless, MTH really needs to update and get new ones. The new Dreyfuss Hudson in the '14 catalog have the same whistles as their PS2 counterparts from 2001, for example.

 

I do like the quillable whistle feature, even though it was in PS2 engines before PS3 really came into play.

 

Regardless, since I'm more of a steam fan, Lionel's Legacy steamers blow away PS3 by a landslide. The whistles sound much more accurate and there's much more variety in them, the chugging is deep and unique as well, the little creaking and groaning sounds are a nice touch. Sequence control also makes the sounds a lot of fun to play with.

 

I do love my PS3 engines like my Premier Blue Comet, but all of my Legacy engines to me are really the best in terms of sound quality and value.

Show me a PS2 or PS3 steam engine that even comes close to the Legacy FEF 844 The MTH FEF isn't even in the same ball park.

I must admit that, in my opinion,  the UP FEF-3 model is the absolute ZENITH of Lionel steam locomotive models, in both sound AND detail. That said, I enjoy my MTH articulated steam models much more than the two Lionel articulated models. For example, I had to have both of my Lionel SP articulated models (AC-9 and AC-12) completely up-graded by Train America Studios, and they STILL do not compare to the MTH in-and-out of sync exhaust sound of a simple articulated. I also really like my MTH C&O K-4 2-8-4 and UP 4-12-2 sound packages.   

The MTH NKP Berk that was just upgraded to PS3, sounds like a NKP Berk. If just "loudness" and the amount of "base" is your criteria, the guy with either multiple speakers or a larger speaker wins. I am very familiar with the sounds of GE AC4400's and EVO's. I have models of both, and they both sound like the real engines to me.