Noch sound system
Hi all, Has anyone any experience of these? are they any good? Any comments will be most welcome. Grusse, David

I've bitten the bullet and purchased. the new sound station II. I am after station sounds, in the station area and loco sounds from underboard speakers in the visable areas of the layout, I believe there is an American system that does this? The write up in the Noch catologue sounds good http://www.noch.de/include/popup_katalog.php?width=1024&height=768 Page 172 So Fingers crossed I have not wasted £87. David

David I've got one of these. It is ok. Not wonderful, but ok. There ought to be a better way of doing this with proper speakers and one of the American cds which are advertised. The Noch is rather limited.

Hi David F, Are you using it for locomotive sound or the city sound? Its on my list of want for the town and country sounds one day in the future. Cheers John

Someone suggested that downloads are available for MP3 players, which are suitable for model railway use. I will give Google a try. David

Using it for the city sounds. It is interesting but I suspect a bit of effort could produce a much better and more convincing system

Maybe Uhlenbrock sound system is another option, especially for DCC controlled layout? On the Uhlenbrock page find Neuheiten > Sound Director http://www.uhlenbrock.com/B/I78F9D16-001.htm

Hi Nicolas, It is a cool piece of kit. But to get the most out of it you need an intellibox! Ideally I want something that produces continual random sound. For me the key is not going to be volume but more ambiant noise as you walk around the layout. Cheers John

Simple el'chipo MP3 player that have random and repeat function, few sound samples loaded, and a pair of cheap active computer loudspeakers. Total cost shouldn't be more than 20-25 GBP. On a 1GB player you can record up to 6 hours of sounds and loops, more than enough for any layout. With 3 players and few sets of speakers, you could have almost every scene covered with sound, the only drawback is that they cannot be controlled with events (passing train over a certain part of the track etc.) without heavy modifications of the player hardware. IMHO Noch sound station is a nice addition, but too limited in features and sound samples for the money it costs.

The new Noch SS II has controlable stereo loco sounds, allowing coming/passing/fading away on a two speaker unit. But I must agree the downloaded sounds for station and city as background noise is a good idea. David

Exellent idea Nicholas! Regs, Tino

I had a demonstration of this product recently and it was astoundingly good. The best I have heard so far. http://www.ossynths.com The quality of the sound is due to large speakers, hidden under the track combined with a woofer. The system detected the locomotive movements and "moves" the sound to the corresponding location. It was demonstrated using a single diesel engine and was very realistic. I don't know whether this would be suitable for operating several trains together. On the other hand, the few experiences I have had of any other system managing multiple trains (mainly DCC controlled with built in speakers), have not been memorable.

The system was first used by the sweet n'narrow Dutch group who demonstrated this at Bristol in the early 90's. They used Walkman mini-speakers in their locos for hi-frequency sound and all mid-range and bass was driven through big speakers under the layout. Very cheap option by driving all locos with same address through an external sound decoder- the motor control was fed to the tracks (cab controlled) and the sound was fed to amp hidden under the layout. As long as their was one loco in use (not a hard choice) you could have hi-fi sound anywhere on the layout. This system works because mid-range and bass are non-directional