Gamechanger?

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

Might be the beginning of the end for the ridiculously expensive sound chips.

 

[DJ Dangerous]

The link:

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklist/siteresults?searchfield=HM7000

 

 

[Sean]

Ive been watching these for a little while and the euvirail review perfectly sums up how i feel about the current state of DCC sound.

 

the only downside is that from what i have seen so far there does not seem to be any USA diesel sounds available so were very limited to what irish trains it will suit.

 

another option ive been looking at for a while; https://soundtraxx.com/products/econami-digital-sound-decoders/eco-21pnem/ These should work out a lot cheaper but by the time you add in shipping and customs you are almost at the price of a loksound anyway so they are hard to justify. Hopefully it is a good thing in the long run but being a hornby DCC product who knows

[Blaine]

Its Hornby who have a rather poor reputation as a manufacturer of DCC equipment. The Roco Z21 system offers phone/app control and is a far better system overall. Hornby is a rapidly diminishing brandname now

[Colin R]

That is why they have turned to TT:1:120 scale as no one else is doing anything yet, but there isn't enough out there to make me switch yet. I should say I already model OOn3 so I would hope that not before to long the 08/09 Diesel 0-6-0 will be out.

That should give some some food of kit bashing. 

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Colin R

[DoctorPan]

I am interested in the TT range for the simple reason of the potential it brings. Off the shelf 12mm chassis and track means that 3ft modelling in 4mm scale has had its entry point made a hell of a lot easier. Especially I'm sure once TT has a level of maturity, I'm sure a Manx or an Irish loco will appear RTR

[Noel]

My concern is Betamax?

[David Holman]

Got my first (and only) sound chip loco about ten years ago. It was a Bachmann H0 three truck shay with a Tsunami sound chip. Given the chip was £100, I got the loco for a tenner, which was quite a bargain at the time.

 It was good fun for a while and I even built an androgynous scenic shunting plank so I could run my 7mmNG shay as well. However the novelty soon faded, both for sound and dcc - just found it all too complex: 100 page  handbooks didn't help either. Each to his own!

 What hasn't faded is the price of sound - almost doubling the cost it seems - while nobody has cracked exhaust effects, especially for steam, so anything that brings the cost down has to be worth looking at. Provided it works, of course.

 In the latest RM, there is a review of a nice three coach set of L&SWR bogie coaches, but it costs £225. With sound fitted 00 locos now well north of £200, add on a ten coach train and you are looking at £1000...

 Am very glad my interests have always been in minor railways with short trains (Sligo cattle traffic excepted that is).

Edited March 14, 2023 by David Holman

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

Yes I really don't understand why sound chips are so expensive, a techy friend of mine who is in the radio business reckons that he can make a sound chip for about €30, research is ongoing.

[skinner75]

1 hour ago, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

Yes I really don't understand why sound chips are so expensive, a techy friend of mine who is in the radio business reckons that he can make a sound chip for about €30, research is ongoing.

Supply and demand I would suspect. Cost drops the more units being ordered - economy of scale.

Same deal with motorbike parts vs car parts - car parts are way cheaper, due to the massive amounts being produced relative to motorbike parts.

I'm sure if IRM ordered 500,000 sound chips, they'd be a lot cheaper per unit than they are currently!

Edited March 14, 2023 by skinner75

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

16 minutes ago, skinner75 said:

Supply and demand I would suspect. Cost drops the more units being ordered - economy of scale.

Same deal with motorbike parts vs car parts - car parts are way cheaper, due to the massive amounts being produced relative to motorbike parts.

I'm sure if IRM ordered 500,000 sound chips, they'd be a lot cheaper per unit than they are currently!

See I have to disagree with you there, a bike battery costs less than a car battery, etc etc, I have both, technology is rapidly changing and DCC will too.

[skinner75]

Just now, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

See I have to disagree with you there, a bike battery costs less than a car battery, etc etc, I have both, technology is rapidly changing and DCC will too.

I only ride bikes, but my dad always comments on the price of bike parts whenever I would mention them.

Economy of scale is still a perfectly valid point

[BosKonay]

They don’t get cheaper with volume. 

[Blaine]

57 minutes ago, BosKonay said:

They don’t get cheaper with volume. 

Certainly not, and if you want good stuff you pay for it too

[Noel]

As a piece of electronics, DCC decoder production never reaches what one could call volume by comparison with consumer electronics or automotive components. Model (Toy) trains is a tiny tiny market by comparison with consumer mass markets unfortunately not with enough scale to mass produce decoders where economics of scale could kick in.

I wouldn't trust Hornby with a barge pole when it comes to DCC or a proprietary alternative. Their track record complying with NMRA standards, compatibility and interoperability is not good, nor has the quality of their budget motor only decoders in the past. TTS has had some success in the train set market segment. Budget decoders fall down on clever motor control tech that makes average locos run more precisely even on train set track. Some of the Hornby Decoders don't even have a CV3 and CV4 setting. Everything to do with TT120 seems to a a grab at direct sales model cutting out the traditional retail distribution channel, and especially taking the box shifters out of the game who have now morphed into competitors producing their own models from time to time. Proprietary tech like the HM7000 seems designed to keep the competition from selling compatible components and leaving Hornby 100% in control. Not sure all of this going out on a limb will end well for them. Words like Betamax and Kodak come to mind.  Hornby is an iconic brand name, that probably launched most folks from childhood who are now n todays model train hobby. Would not like to see anything bad happen to that brand name whoever ends up owning it in the future.

[DJ Dangerous]

Probably a lot more to a decoder than meets the eye.

Also have to factor in hidden costs like recording the sounds, having tech support, issuing replacements, discounts for retailers or whatever.

I'm sure that if there were a high quality alternative available for a quarter of the price with no sacrifices, IRM, Murphy Models et al would be offering them instead of ESU decoders.

[Sean]

5 hours ago, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

Yes I really don't understand why sound chips are so expensive, a techy friend of mine who is in the radio business reckons that he can make a sound chip for about €30, research is ongoing.

I think theres a bit more to it than this though,  I have been looking into the same thing on and off for about a year, as well as testing alternative solutions such as virtual sound decoders, both on mobile and pc.  no solution performs as well as a proper esu chip with B-EMF feedback in my experience 

for me the biggest issue has been making up solutions actually small enough to fit inside of a loco shell but even if i do knock something up I will then have no real software to run on it and would also have to develop this on top of the device.

if we break down the individual components of a sound chip also, the price we actually pay for the sound element of the chip is not all that much.. maybe 50-60 euros, for that we are getting the industry standard in sound design software and build quality.

its 26 euro for a blank lokpilot, there are cheaper options available, but the difference in features and running quality is quickly apparent and you quickly see where the money goes.

a blank loksound fx is 64 at the moment and a blank full featured loksound goes for 94.  on top of this we are usually also paying approximately 30 euro for the sound project from a third party who will supply everything set up and ready to go. you can get around this by making your own project and asking the retailer to flash it for you but only some retailers will.  I can also spend zero and use a virtual sound decoder but tbh i find them quite shit and not worth the time. 

so 60 euro, thats what i really consider the cost of adding sound to a loco, beyond that im getting the best motor control on the market and paying a sound engineer for his time spent in the field recording and building up the project afterwards.

I actually have a keen interest in digging deeper on this and if you want to continue the conversation and possibly share where we are at with it dont hesitate to PM me.

 

4 hours ago, Gabhal Luimnigh said:

See I have to disagree with you there, a bike battery costs less than a car battery, etc etc, I have both, technology is rapidly changing and DCC will too.

I dont think bike are a good analogy as prices will vary massively by brand and as you get into bigger CC's bikes are more of a luxury than a utilitarian product and things are priced accordingly. 2 tyres for some of my bikes cost more than 4 decent car tyres. batteries in particular would be a more mass produced subsection of automotive parts and would be priced based on their size rather than any sort of perceived demand.

 

All that being said, to bring this full circle you have reminded me of 2 good examples of why the cost of these things are so high.

Back when i started riding about 15 years ago any new learner had to restrict their bike to 33BHP or essentially they were riding unlicensed. different limits today but essentially the same system applies with different rules and regs.  in order to make a lot of bikes "learner legal" they had to be fitted with a restriction kit that usually consisted of a few large washers within the throttle bodys to essentially make them smaller or sometimes it would be a small bracket that prevents the rider going full throttle, or a combo of both.

Anyway it eventually became the case that you needed one of these kits installed and certified by a mechanic in order to be able to take out insurance on a larger bike, but there was only one manufacturer of these kits, and they had somehow lobbied the industry to only accept their kits and certification's, which cost an outrageous 300 euro with no alternative available whatsoever. 

I worked in a bike garage at the time and often complained to the owner about this who used to complain back stating that the company have massive R&D costs as they have to develop solutions specific to every single bike that is released. so fair enough i thought, i much prefer small cc yokes anyway than strangling down a bigger yoke.

Eventually someone did copy their designs and started selling them on ebay with his own certificates for 50 quid, got one of these myself and the bike ran alot worse than it would of with one of the expensive kits, I also had trouble getting the certificate recognised by my insurance co who had never seen one of these before and i was actually turned away from being able to sit my driving test due to having one, eventually i did see where the extra 250 notes was going to with the dear kits.

 

 

on the other hand, i used to tune 2 stroke mopeds when i was younger and this is where the difference in part prices can come very apparent, a racing cylinder built to the same specification of an OEM one could sometimes cost double or triple the price despite being built sometimes even in the same plant from the same processes. (one example would be Malossi racing cylinders having the same "brevatto" casting on them as the OEM vespa cylinders)

OEM will be producing millions of these whereas the tuning firm might be producing them in the hundreds or thousands, tuning firm have also spent considerable time refining the OEM design for all out performance or a balance of more performance and reliability, it is not uncommon for a cylinder to cost 5 or 6 times the price of the OEM one. 

 

so whilst that is a bit of a ramble the final point is simple, of that 60 euro approx cost to add esu sound to a loco, how much of that 60 is going towards the software engine on the chip and further R&D to improve it?  you are buying more than just the hardware when you want to  add sound to a loco.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Sean

[Dave Dawes]

On 9/3/2023 at 6:01 PM, DJ Dangerous said:

The link:

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklist/siteresults?searchfield=HM7000

 

 

Soundtraxx are also going down this route. It could be good as DCC has lagged behind in tech. Just need a decent Bluetooth connection . Also wouldn't need a base unit just 12 to 16 volts going to the track 

[Noel]

Problem is modelling railways set in Ireland means almost exclusive use of diesel locos, therefore prime movers for GM/EMD diesel engines employed in 12,141,181,071 and 201, and Irish diesel loco horns, none of the Hornby nor budget US sound decoders facilitate this combination. Unfortunately perhaps not a game changer. In the mean time purchase ESU decoders direct from Germany for €95 and upload free diesel sound projects onto them using a LokProgrammer rather than paying €120 for a pre-programmed ESU decoder. Its not rocket science. I don't see the benefit of bluetooth for control data comms, when through track works just as well and offers almost wire free control of DCC accessory decoders for point control, signals, etc, rather than having to buy bluetooth hardware accessories. A game changer with be an ESU LokSound quality decoder selling for €50 with an open NMRA compliant standards for programming and integration. Vanilla sound projects just don't cut it for Irish Diesel locos, perhaps 260 and 460, and 060 steam locos assuming half decent whilst sounds might get away with it.