DCC Sub-woofers

Discuss your experiences with systems, decoders, installations, wiring, control and any general hints & tips you have found.
Alyn
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2015 7:43 pm

DCC Sub-woofers

Postby Alyn » Thu Dec 03, 2020 3:46 pm

Given that low frequencies are far less directional than higher ones, has anyone considered a way to split dcc sounds between the loco (high frequencies) and a shared woofer(low frequencies) concealed beneath the baseboard, for a much more realistic sound?

Alyn

nigelcliffe
Posts: 747
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:31 am

Re: DCC Sub-woofers

Postby nigelcliffe » Thu Dec 03, 2020 5:46 pm

I think it would end up being "fun" (*). You need to split the audio after its generated (in the sound decoder) and send some of that back to the baseboard either via the rails (tricky with all the DCC stuff already in the rails) or wirelessly. Wireless has an issue of any delay steps from processors (encode/decode) which could result in the bass being behind the treble sound.

Alternatively, ditch the sound decoder in the loco, and generate the sounds at the baseboard, and send only the treble out to the loco. But that means loco movement, load, and wheel synchronisation at the loco has disappeared.
Arguably simpler to do it with base-board mounted speakers for everything, steer the sound and sound volume to the appropriate place on the layout based on where the loco is reported to be (either automatically, or human steering of sound). There are commercial and DIY systems which do this for model railways, plus a well known layout or two which have done this at exhibitions (remember those?).


Or, invent a whole new bi-directional high speed communications method from baseboard to loco to get loco behaviour and sounds back-forth sufficiently quickly for it all to work.


(*) in the "its going to get extremely techy very rapidly" sense of fun.


- Nigel


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