Excellent Factory Sound in New Atlas SD35s

[wmcbride]

After my disappointment about the factory speaker installation and resulting "thin" sounds in the beautifully detailed Scale Trains Tier 4, I am pleased to report that the just-released Atlas SD35s, with factory Loksound, sound great.

The speaker is in the fuel tank and the tank housing and chassis interface is tight.

I am quite happy and think John Colombo might be pleased with these as well.

Well done to Atlas!

[reinhardtjh]

I have sound equipped ALCo C630's coming next week. I"m hoping they did as good of a job on those as they have done on the SD35

[drgw0579]

In some of the more recent Atlas "Silver" announcements, in particular the GP30, Atlas mentioned that the speaker would be installed in the locomotive, even though the decoder would not be.  Since the new decoders "slide in", this makes the unit easier to upgrade.  Do we think the C630 and the SD35 will be like that?   I suspect not, because the speaker was explicitly mentioned for the GP30.   If they aren't, any idea if the speaker that does come in the Gold models can be purchased somewhere else?   I would rather buy my decoders separately.

Bill Kepner

[reinhardtjh]

If they aren't, any idea if the speaker that does come in the Gold models can be purchased somewhere else?   I would rather buy my decoders separately.

If the Silver models don't come with the speaker, then the first place to start watching will be the Atlas parts site to see if they show up there.  Otherwise you will probably have to measure the opening in the chassis and look on Digikey, Mouser, Streamline Backshop or one of the other places for a speaker that is the same size.  Fortunately, they seem to have settled on some common sizes so hopefully it won't be too difficult.

The chassis will be designed to fit the ESU 73199 Select Direct Micro OEM sound decoder or the ESU 54650 LokPilot V4.0 Micro Direct OEM non-sound decoder.  If you want ESU Sound you may be just as well off buying the Gold version.  Using MBKlein as an example, the Gold SD35's are $156.99 and the Silver are $83.99 for a difference of $73 which is cheaper than you will find an ESU 73199 decoder and a speaker anywhere by at least $10.

If you just want non-sound DCC then getting the Silver and your own decoder is the only route.

[edge8300]

After my disappointment about the factory speaker installation and resulting "thin" sounds in the beautifully detailed Scale Trains Tier 4, I am pleased to report that the just-released Atlas SD35s, with factory Loksound, sound great.

The speaker is in the fuel tank and the tank housing and chassis interface is tight.

I am quite happy and think John Colombo might be pleased with these as well.

Well done to Atlas!

Great!!  I’d got 3 coming from HogTrainz and 3 c630’s coming whenever they get them (hopefully next week like you said)!!!