i have gone to the dark side (bachmann RTR sound)

Ok, I am a fan of class 37, always have been since a lad. I was intending to pick up 37114 at Calne Sunday but on a family day out today i managed to swing a quick visit to Lord & butler. They had a coal sector 37 with sound there on a demonstration track, under the control of Dynamis. I had a play for about 10 mmins and decided as they had done body swaps and I could get 37114 ready sound chipped it would do as I want it on show at Sodbury vale / Yate next Saturday. Save me half a job sort of.
So, i have entered the dark side of RTR sound!!!

First impressions.

Its not as quite as some have suggested. Its not bad at all really for one speaker. I will do some mods later and post pics etc, but a simple mod would be to remove the large black piece of plastic that sort of holds the fan in place. This is blocking alot of sound exiting via the fan. Myself, unless you are going to motorise the fan as Andy dell has done on his 56 etc, I dont see the difference in having the fan stuck in place somehow.
Anyway;

F0 lights, head lights on one end tail the other. I have sent Mick Bryan some new 37/4 pcb to see if he can come up with the head/tail mods so they can be switched on / off indepentanly, but for now it will do.

F1 start up / shut down. - This sounds very much like the standard SWd mk 4 set up.
F2 single horn
f3 double horn - Not sure that these sound exactly the same as swd mk 4, will need to do comaprrison after second speaker is fitted to bachman class 37 sound chip.(later tonight)


f4 Fan- I find this an annoying sound and hardly use it.

F5 notch up


F6 Notch down


Now this is what swung the sale for me, and time. The notch up takes you from idle - mid range -top end thrash. With out using it, straight from the box bachmann;'s set up is all wrong, totaly crap infact.
you get the same initial take power and throttle back as with swd, but then with bachmanns setting its takes about 6 feet or more before any idle- mid range comes in. It looks totally wrong as a loco accelerates fairly fast with no sound of the engine doing anything other than tick over.

However, hit speed step 1 (128) and then f5, let the revs build and then take off and it looks alot more "real."


I think this is a featere that adds loads more play and realisum and is a feature the Swd version could do with???

F7 half speed, - again for me totally usless as on speed step 1 the thing crawls very slow anyway.

f8 Cab lights. - I will disconect one end and just keep the one cab light at the drivers end. Its a bit of a useless gimmick unless you operate in the dark.

f9 Buffer clash - same as SWd

F10 - coupling sound - same as swd.

no f11 or f12 but i suspect htey can be set to aux 1& 2 with function mapping?

I dont beleive the rtr sounds have been anywhere as good as the SWd / howes versions off the shelf, but this one is better. I will now be doing some chopping (chassis came from a 37 with oleo buffers) to replace the buffers, add ploughs, pipes and more mportantly, a second speaker in the tanks.

The choices are
one x 23 round
or
one x 20x40 standard esu speaker
or
one x dcc supplies modified 20x40
or
no 1 choice for this project i think, the Dcc supplies base reflex (uk versuion) speaker.

Shall report later.