Gerrard

Thanks for your input Richard. I agree there is definitely effort in the 'program' however, whilst I'm no expert in programming locomotive sound files, the diagram you provided appears to be a fairly basic logic flow for when to play what sound. I work with far more complicated logic flows (I've worked in IT for 30+ years). My point isn't that these people shouldn't be compensated, it's that the effort involved isn't vast by any stretch of the imagination, and that effort is compensated for by a percentage of each sale. On that basis I still can't see the justification for the addition unit cost of adding sound to the decoders. It honestly seems very excessive to me. Happy to be pointed in the right direction, but none of what I've read so far appears to justify the cost. Thanks everyone for contributing to the debate.

I get that there's effort involved in recording and editing the sounds. And some more work in the 'program', but that still doesn't justify the unit cost in my view. Not when compared to other consumer electronics that are far, far more complicated.

Hi Donny - Sorry I've only just responded, I didn't realise that I had notifications turned off. I decided to go for the matt finish in the end (R3207), the gloss just didn't look right and made it look too toy like for me. Thanks for everybody's contribution to the discussion.

It is just me or do others think the huge cost of adding sound to a locomotive is far more expensive than is should be? I work in IT and many of the technologies I use are far more complex and difficult to produce than a sound chip, so I can't understand how the cost of them can be justified. Sure, the IT industry has significantly larger scale of production, but I still don't believe that accounts for the excessive pricing. I actually wonder if the excessive pricing is self defeating, meaning that the sales volume is much lower than is could be due to costs that many people can't justify? Would there be a linear relationship between price reduction and sales increase? Could one offset the other? Or perhaps increase revenue for the vendor / manufacturer? Just something I've been wondering about for a while and am interested what others thoughts on this are? Is there a justification for the high price tag?

So I'm thinking of buying the Hornby 'Cock O The North' but I'm not sure which is better, the Matt (R3207), or Gloss (R3440). I believe they are the same level of detail? I must admit to tending toward the matt version. What do people think? Any recommendations or is it just down to personal preference? Thanks.