Kernow GWR steam rail motor

[melmerby]

I'm surprised that DCC sound seems so bad to me.

 

I'm 78, my hearing is naturally deteriorating with high frequency drop off and lower sensitivity overall but still I find DCC sound  generally, too loud, too "tissy" and lacking in bass.

Edited March 11 by melmerby

[GWR-fan]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

I'm surprised that DCC sound seems so bad to me.

 

I'm 78, my hearing is naturally deteriorating with high frequency drop off and lower sensitivity overall but still I find DCC sound  generally, too loud, too "tissy" and lacking in bass.

 

Like you I also find digital sound irritating.  On my largescale railway after several minutes of multiple sound fitted locomotives running I would mute the sound.  The effect was like taking a large Valium dose.   It was like peace and tranquility had descended on me.

 

That said one of my more prototypical sounding models was a frreelance Garratt type arrangement that I kitbuilt from numerous LGB (mainly Stainz) parts and household items onhand.  The boiler is a length of PVC piping and the piping taken from wire coathangers.  However, what I did was mount a Massoth 3 watt speaker inside the firebox with the back of the speaker porting forward through the length of the boiler barrell.  I actually like the sound produced.  The decoder is from Massoth.  The model is pure fantasy and was lettered to suit other Rugen models that I had.

 

 

[Mikkel]

Very evocative. And you must have friendly neighbours 🙂

[Oldddudders]

30 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Very evocative. And you must have friendly neighbours 🙂

He used to have!

[SRman]

15 hours ago, melmerby said:

I'm surprised that DCC sound seems so bad to me.

 

I'm 78, my hearing is naturally deteriorating with high frequency drop off and lower sensitivity overall but still I find DCC sound  generally, too loud, too "tissy" and lacking in bass.

 

The overall volume can be adjusted to personal tastes. None of my sound-fitted locos and units are at full volume. ESU and ZImo also allow individual sound volumes to be adjusted (several other brands also allow this).

Some sound projects can be a bit hissy but for steam projects that's not necessarily such a bad thing. Even so, it is difficult to get enough bass into the steam sounds for that chest-heaving "woof" sound. ESU have addressed this to a degree with the recent update allowing one to adjust bass and treble settings. The ultimate output still depends on the speaker and its size and quality. 

Having said all that, sound is not everyone's taste, and if you don't like it, that's fine too. 

I seem to be lucky on the hearing front: I had a full hearing test last week and the practitioner pronounced my hearing "excellent". Considering that I am approaching 70, it should be dropping off a bit at the top end and the bottom end as well, taking the norms of ageing into account.

Incidentally, I had a friend drop in last week with his Kernow steam railmotor in GWR livery and sound. The sound was actually very good (in my opinion), straight out of the box, although we did turn the volume down a bit almost straight away (I had to look up the CV for Zimo's master volume so I could program it on the fly as it chuffed around - it's CV266!).

 

 

Edited March 12 by SRman
Additional info

[Harlequin]

Here's a video comparing the sounds with and without the speaker enclosure.

 

I'm not making any great claims about this - you can hear a difference but it's not earth-shattering.

 

Sound haters don't need to comment, thanks. I know the sound is a bit weedy.

 

 

[Andy Keane]

Phil, what impact, if any, do you find fitting the carriage body makes?

l have a second SRM on order and when I add the people etc, I could perhaps try an enclosure.

Andy

Edited March 16 by Andy Keane

[Pteremy]

On 10/03/2024 at 15:40, Harlequin said:

It's best practice to use speakers with a sealed enclosure behind them to contain and absorb sound waves from the back of the diaphragm so that you mainly hear the waves from the front of the speaker without the rear waves interfering and thus you get clearer, louder results.

 

The factory-installed speaker in the SRM is open to the interior of the body, which is not an acoustically sealed enclosure and has walls thin enough to transmit some of the internal sound.

 

So, I designed and 3D-printed a speaker enclosure to fit over the factory-fitted speaker and, since the speaker is housed in the luggage compartment, I disguised it as a pile of Edwardian luggage.

 

Here's the prototype:

 

Please excuse the dodgy painting.

 

I unsoldered the lighting capacitor and moved it up into the ceiling space with flying leads (there's plenty of room):

 

Then I unsoldered the speaker, removed it and fitted it into the new enclosure (you can see there's a ring to hold it in place with a dab of black tack:

 

The new assembly is a tight fit over the SRM speaker housing and pushes the speaker down onto it's seat. The original screws hold the enclosure in place:

 

With the speaker wires threaded back up through the PCB and soldered back to their pads, the body could go back on for a test.

 

After all that I can report that it really does seem to improve the sound - but not by an astounding amount. And the luggage is only visible on rare occasions when the lighting is just right.

 

It was an interesting little project.

 

 

The faux luggage is a great idea. Adaptable to other contexts - like DMUs

 

 

[Harlequin]

15 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Phil, what impact, if any, do you find fitting the carriage body makes?

l have a second SRM on order and when I add the people etc, I could perhaps try an enclosure.

Andy

 

I was not keen to remove and replace the body too many times (!) but as far as I can judge, the body makes very little difference to the sound whether an enclosure is used or not. I think that's because it's such a big volume with relatively flimsy sides (from an audio perspective).

 

I'll send you the STL if that's any use, or I can print one and send it.

 

[Neal Ball]

15 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Here's a video comparing the sounds with and without the speaker enclosure.

 

I'm not making any great claims about this - you can hear a difference but it's not earth-shattering.

 

Sound haters don't need to comment, thanks. I know the sound is a bit weedy.

 

 

That’s a good improvement Phil.  Well worth replacing it.

[Andy Keane]

1 hour ago, Harlequin said:

I can print one and send it

Phil, if you could that would be very much appreciated

Andy

[KeithMacdonald]

I know this is not the current Kernow GWR steam rail motor, but perhaps a future variation?

Found in Swindon Central Library album on Flickr.

 

Quote

1903: GWR Motor Car, Stonehouse (Postcard), Source: Scan of an original postcard. Set: SIM01. Date: 1903. Postmark: February 15th 1908. Repository: From the collection of Mr R. Simmons.

 

 

Found some notes on it here:

https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/zrailmotor93/history/pictures/sub_gubbins.html

 

[Harlequin]

On 17/03/2024 at 11:27, Andy Keane said:

Phil, if you could that would be very much appreciated

Andy

Will do.

 

[Coppercap]

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

I know this is not the current Kernow GWR steam rail motor, but perhaps a future variation?

Found in Swindon Central Library album on Flickr.

 

 

 

Found some notes on it here:

https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/zrailmotor93/history/pictures/sub_gubbins.html

 

It's hardly a 'variation' - I don't think anything you can see is common to the Kernow version. It would need to be a completely new model, and most unlikey to appear. These weren't very long lived when compared to the one we now have, limiting their appeal. Also, the fact that there isn't a 12" to the foot model to measure (only drawings, and photos) would make it even more unlikely.

[Kaput]

In typical fashion I got the shipping notification for my sound fitted one while on the road to London for Ally Pally.

 

Fortunately Kernow use couriers that let you reschedule the delivery so it should be here tomorrow, hopefully not in 20 peices after spending a weekend in the tender care of a delivery office.

[melmerby]

22 hours ago, Coppercap said:

It's hardly a 'variation' - I don't think anything you can see is common to the Kernow version. It would need to be a completely new model, and most unlikey to appear. These weren't very long lived when compared to the one we now have, limiting their appeal. Also, the fact that there isn't a 12" to the foot model to measure (only drawings, and photos) would make it even more unlikely.

The Motor unit is the same or very similar, everything else isn't.

[Kaput]

Fun. My rescheduled delivery never turned up then it went through the whole out for delivery thing again today with a timeslot and all. Timeslot has been and gone with no sign of attempted delivery.

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, Kaput said:

Fun. My rescheduled delivery never turned up then it went through the whole out for delivery thing again today with a timeslot and all. Timeslot has been and gone with no sign of attempted delivery.

I had that once with a RM delivery from Derails.

A couple of "attempts" to deliver it complete with time slots, which didn't happen and then an e-mail that the item was undeliverable.(😕)

It turned out they couldn't find it.

Derails sent a replacement, I never got the original and I don't know whether Derails ever got it back.

[Al51]

9 hours ago, melmerby said:

I had that once with a RM delivery from Derails.

A couple of "attempts" to deliver it complete with time slots, which didn't happen and then an e-mail that the item was undeliverable.(😕)

It turned out they couldn't find it.

Derails sent a replacement, I never got the original and I don't know whether Derails ever got it back.

I've had the same situation with Royal Mail, except that I got the undeliverable email at 5pm and at about 7.30pm I answered the door and there was the postman with the supposedly undeliverable parcel! 

 

Al

[Michael Hodgson]

On 20/03/2024 at 10:43, melmerby said:

The Motor unit is the same or very similar, everything else isn't.

In that case if would be a suitable unit for one of the 3D printing experts to have a go at doing as a conversion jobbie.  But what would one do with the displaced beautiful Kernow body?

 

Way beyond anything I would tackle  though.

[Coppercap]

6 hours ago, Al51 said:

15 hours ago, melmerby said:

I had that once with a RM delivery from Derails.

A couple of "attempts" to deliver it complete with time slots, which didn't happen and then an e-mail that the item was undeliverable.(😕)

It turned out they couldn't find it.

Derails sent a replacement, I never got the original and I don't know whether Derails ever got it back.

 

Not from Derails, and not model railway related, but a relative of mine repeat-ordered something online, and had an email stating that it had been delivered by RM, with a photo of the parcel on a doorstep. Except it wasn't their doorstep, and clearly it wasn't anyone else's in their road, or even on their estate. You could even see the (correct) address in the photo. They contacted the seller who then contacted RM, who claimed it had been delivered correctly, but they eventually accepted it was not the correct doorstep in the photo, and had no clue where that doorstep was either. Seller then despatched replacement that arrived without issue (probably the regular postman...). Item was valued at over £100. Shame that the seller was legally held responsible for this, and had to make a loss on it, even though they were 100% blameless. The parcel was apparently never 'returned to sender' nor returned to RM to deliver to the correct address.   

[Pteremy]

Hopefully there will be another 'despatch update' soon. 

[Andy Keane]

This was one for us - we live 150 yards from the Abbey and the parcel was wedged into the door to the bell tower - luckily the Church Warden saw this dumping going on and retrieved the parcel worth £400! They claimed it was our front door as if we lived in a 900 year old Abbey!

[Pteremy]

12 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

This was one for us - we live 150 yards from the Abbey and the parcel was wedged into the door to the bell tower - luckily the Church Warden saw this dumping going on and retrieved the parcel worth £400! They claimed it was our front door as if we lived in a 900 year old Abbey!

 

Do you have the same postcode as the church? If you take SATNAV as an example there are clearly some people who overlook the blindingly obvious preferring to believe what the information on their 'device' is telling them.

[Andy Keane]

9 minutes ago, Pteremy said:

 

Do you have the same postcode as the church? If you take SATNAV as an example there are clearly some people who overlook the blindingly obvious preferring to believe what the information on their 'device' is telling them.

Indeed we do and no doubt that was the excuse.