TTS Valenta/MTU

[Ouroborus]

I've been working my way through my HST's and adding TTS sound to them.   If you're going this way, some things i've found.  

Initially, i placed some of Richard's megabass speakers in and whilst these give a load throaty growl, they are rather loud.  Unfortunately, whilst the sound volume can be lowered (CV182 - initially 4), it still seemed far too loud.  Once you're down to Cv182 being 1, the next lowest is off.   So i changed to another one of Richard's speakers (a much smaller one) and while it loses some of the bass, it also lowers the volume.  I found the MTU to be the worst offender.  In contrast, the Valenta needed the volume increasing.

I know some people use the same CV setting for these, with the direction reversed on the power car.  (programming the TTS requires a motor on the test track on my ECoS)   By keeping different CV's, you can keep individual control of the engine noise, but driving the train became a bit of a faff.  Running as a consist or with both on the same CV was a lot easier, but the engine 'note' was in perfect sync in both power car and trailer.  To me, this sounded just a little odd - it was like a stereo effect.   However (and purists look away now), mixing the Valenta and MTU chips into the same HST so the power car was Valenta and the the trailer MTU got rid of the stereo effect and broke up the sync.  Whilst the sound of the engines was similar and when in consist they revved up in a similar way, there was a really pleasing difference as the Valenta unit began to whine and the the MTU gave more of a growl.  TTS is what it is, so i might be exaggerating with "whines" and "growls", but there is a notable difference in engine note, which is what i was aiming for.  For reference, even with similar speakers, for similar volume, the MTU CV182 was 1, Valenta CV182 was 6.  

[Ouroborus]

Thanks Richard.  I might look at this for the TTS 66 which goes excellently with the megabass.

[cravensdmufan]

7 minutes ago, Richard Croft said:

Hi, thanks for the mention, 

 

One option to reduce volume further than the CV's let you would be to use another 8 ohm speaker in series with the megabass speaker. This would give a 16 ohm load and make the sound quieter  but you could still get the full benefit of the extra bass from the megabass speaker. Its my understanding that it would also make the decoder work 'less hard' so it can actually have a positive effect of the life of the decoder too. Someone else might be able to explain it better!

 

Richard

 

 

Would agree with Richard - he actually advised me about the trick of wiring in a second 8 ohmspeaker in series some time back.

 

I always found TTs too loud even after reducing CV182 to 1 in all my locos.  So now I fitted two speakers in most of my locos and it makes such a difference - much easier on the ear in my small layout room.  Using different combinations of speakers in locos of the same class adds a nice variety of tones).

 

Just make sure you wire them in series though!  (Parallel would increase the volume and probably blow the chip as well!).