SoundTraxx Tsunami - A First Look

by Don Fiehmann

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The desire to add sound to our model railroads goes way back in time. Early attempts used phonographs with railroad sound records. Then came the sound system from PFM that sent sound (ac) superimposed on the dc on the rails to a speaker in the locomotive. The first comm and control system to have sound was done by Bob Keller in the early 1980's with his Onboard analog system. Onboard gave you a choice of steam or diesel with a few horns or whistles variations. With the advent of DCC and digital sound, SoundTraxx was able to expand the choice of sounds. This allowed you to choose from a variety of different engine sounds with matching horns or whistles. As technology has advanced so has SoundTraxx with state of art sound decoders. The new line of next generation sound decoders from SoundTraxx is called Tsunami (tsoo-nä'-mëe). This series of sound decoders has taken a long time from conception to production. This does not surprised me with the ambitious number of advances to be included in the new sound decoders. I appreciate SoundTraxx holding off production until the design was perfected.

The Tsunami decoders have great improvements in three areas; sound, motor control and lighting. The sound quality is greatly improved with 16 bit sound replacing the older 8 bit sound. The sound effect processor can separately control up to 24 sounds. Throttle changes affect the exhaust sounds. An adjustable reverb can be added to the sound. A multi-band equalizer lets you adjust the sound levels in seven different frequency ranges to better match the sound output to the speaker and enclosure. The improved motor control is called Hyperdrive. This supersonic motor drive will keep the motor running quietly. Torque compensation helps with slow starts and keep the locomotive running smoothly. Hyperlight gives you a choice of 14 improved lighting special effects on four function outputs. Add to the lighting is control of either lamps or LEDs. All of these improved features in the Tsunami come in a package that is thinner and shorter than the DSD-150 that it replaces.

Beta Testing
SoundTraxx has provided a number of pre-production beta test Tsunamis to experienced modelers that were asked to test the decoder and then report back the results of their tests. These tests asked modelers to determine the best sound level and motor control setting. It also asked about likes and dislikes of the Tsunami. I was one of the fortunate modelers that got one of the beta test Tsunamis. There were two other modelers here in the Silicon Valley that also got the beta test decoders. By having a big number of tests performed in a variety situations many problems can be solved before the product is on the market.

The beta test Tsunami came with all the needed preliminary manuals to test the decoder. A booster for the program track was also provided that wired between comm and station and the program track. Like most of the newer sound decoders a higher current is needed to operate the decoder and can be too much for the normal program track's limited power.

Testing the Tsunami
My first test was to connect the Tsunami to a decoder tester that had an added speaker and motor. The speaker let me hear the sounds and the motor let me check how well the back-emf and torque compensation was operating. The decoder checked out fine and I set the address to match my Bachmann 2-6-6-2. A 1 inch speaker is installed in the tender coal bunker. The Tsunami came with the standard colored leads. I installed a standard NMRA 8 pin connector to match the DCC ready connector in the 2-6-6-2 tender.

My first pleasant surprise was the sound volume. I had to cut down the overall volume with a CV setting. And then adjusted a couple of the individual sound levels to the way l like them.

My first series of tests were a comparison with another steam sound equipped locomotive. It turned out that for many of the sounds there was no comparison! The Tsunami chuffs and exhaust sounds with the 16 bit sounds were far superior. The Tsunami made the other locomotive exhaust sound like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together! The sounds from the Tsunami compared well with a CD of railroad steam sounds. The Tsunami dynamically changes exhaust sound levels depending on acceleration or deceleration. When starting with a load the chuff were louder. As it picked up speed the level would cut back when it reached the speed setting. Slow down and the chuff sound cut back like it was drifting. I have to admit that I just sat there and ran the Tsunami back and forth, over and over just to hear the changing exhaust sounds.

The bell was another item that was head and shoulder above anything I’ve heard in a model. The only thing I had that was even close to the sound was a real locomotive bell! Some of the other decoders that I compared the bell with sounded like an iron bell with little “ring” to them. The Tsunami had a nice clear ring to the bell sound.

Firemen Fred is another added Tsunami feature. This includes the sound of shoveling coal, the grease gun, oil can, injectors, turn his wrench plus a few others. One of the sounds is the water stop with the tender being filled with water. These sounds come on at random times when the locomotive stops. There are CVs to allow you to change the probability of these sounds running when stopped. The water stop sound is also controlled with one of the function keys. I set the probability to zero so I could control the sound with the function key when I stopped at a water tank. The water filling sound starts the squeak of the hatch opening on the tender, water flows and when finished the squeak returns. Other controllable are the cylinder blowdown, short or long whistle, injectors, coupler clank, and brake squeal. The brake squeal was activated by F11. The interesting function of F11 was to set the brakes plus the squeal. When F11 is press the engine will continue slowing to a stop or return to the speed setting if the brake is released. The rate of braking is adjustable with this function. Works neat for switching. I liked the brake feature and using key mapping I swapped the water stop and the brake function keys so brake was on F9 and water stop on F11. This combination was easier to use on my cab. With five watering spots on the layout it now takes a lot longer to go around the layout.

The torque compensation would start the engine moving slowly at speed step 1 without adjusting CV-2. One thing missing in the beta version was a top speed control with CV-5, although the speed could be adjusted using the alternate speed table. The acceleration and deceleration rates were set at over 16 to enhance the DDE (Dynamic Digital Exhaust) sounds. There are a number of CVs that control the DDE sounds. The factory defaults worked well. A few improvements were made by changing these CVs to match the engine. If things get goofed up, you can reset the Tsunami back to factory setting with CV 30 bit 2.

The beta Tsunami have a choice of three whistles set by CV 115. (The final release will have a much larger whistle selection.) When operated the whistle has a nice build up and fall off. The only thing I found lacking was the ability to “play” the whistle. But, there are rumors on the internet that a number of DCC systems are making changes to incorporate the ability to be able to “play” the whistle. This will be done via an analog channel that is in the DCC standards. (This will use one of the DCC Advance Operation Instructions.) I found that it is more than a rumor. I had a chance to hear one of the test versions of the playable whistle at SoundTraxx. This feature will be a great addition to the other features. The playable whistle requires a modification of the DCC system. Could the NMRA convention in July reveal that this is more than a rumor!

The NMRA DCC standards were set up with a lot of foresight. The DCC Working Group continues to allow changes, like the playable whistle, that make DCC more flexible and better for all of us.

After using the Tsunami decoder I feel they are a real jewel now going through the final polishing stage. Howard McKinney made the following statement about his Tsunami: “I love all the sounds and the adjustments we can make with them. Similar to what Charlton Heston said, you will need to pry my Tsunami out of my cold dead hands.” I totally agree with Howard’s statement. I would like to continue with this writing, but for now I feel an urge to go out to the train room to run my Tsunami equipped 2-6-6-2.

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