Has anyone installed a sound decoder into their Kato Shinkansen?

[GeorgeHInch]

I'm curious if anyone has added DCC sound decoder to their Kato Shinkansen, specifically the E7 or N700A. I saw a thread on here from back in 2015 that started addressing this but it seemed to end very anticlimactically due to limitations at the time.

 

It seems like the non-motored trailer cars for the N700A have a cavern under the floor piece with a metal weight. Since the metal strips already run through here it seems like an easy place to stash a sound decoder with a sugar cube speaker. I assume a decoder and speaker will come close to weight to the metal already there.

 

I think the biggest question here though, has anyone ever generated sound files for any of the Shinkansen?

[Martijn Meerts]

I've installed a sound decoder in a H0 Kato E5, but not in an N-scale one. For the H0 one, I built a custom sound box from 1mm MDF and used the biggest speaker I could fit. The sugar cube speakers (at least the ESU ones) have terrible sound on their own, and even with ESU's own sound box it's not much better, mainly because it's a plastic sound box.

 

For N-scale, I'm not even considering adding sound. For one, the quality will be poor due to the tiny speakers. Second, the sound of wheels on the track will drown out the generated motor sounds, unless you set the volume levels to annoying. And third, a shinkansen will likely need speakers in multiple cars to make it sound anywhere near realistic. 

 

I also think H0 is still not big enough for decent sound, unless you manage to get some really high quality speakers such as used in quality headphones, and even then you need to build a sound box to add some oomph to the sound. Of course, I'm overly critical with regards to sounds, so that doesn't generally help much 😄

 

 

[chadbag]

I have not yet.  I plan to at some time in the future -- probably long in the future as it is not a priority now compared to just getting DCC in everything and doin layout work..   I have not seen any sound files for Shinkansen yet.   But I have several D&H sound decoders that need homes and a Shinkansen is one intended place 🙂

 

If you find anything sound file wise, please post a link!