Is DCC sound really required?


My personal recollection of riding on Zephyrs as a young kid and C&NW 400's as a teen are of the diesel horns sounding and the bells as the train went past grade crossings. I seldom heard steam locomotives go by, but, fascinated by them, I had to have some, and to date must have about fifty. When I started building my latest layout, I wired it for DC, with no thought to having sound. Then, when I built my first "hacksaw" kitbash of a Burlington M-4 2-10-4, and was showing it to my wife, she said, "Why don't your choo-choos...'choo-choo'?" So I installed a DCC setup, and installed a sound decoder in that locomotive. Six steam and a bunch of diesels equipped with sound DCC later, I still have a lot of DC soundless engines. (I can switch back and forth to DC or DCC by means of a toggle on my master control panel, which works fine, since I only run one train at a time, and don't do much switching.)
I am just completing another M-4, but so far have NOT installed a decoder, and may or may not.
Do I think sound is nice to have? Yes. If I was starting from scratch, instead of having over 60 years worth of rolling stock, I might buy dual mode decoder equipped locomotives. But, then again, due to the over $100 difference between DC and DCC with sound in most available engines, I might not.

Basically, comes down to your railroad, your call.
 
homersimpsonlikestrains said:
I’m building an N scale layout and do I really need sound equipped locomotives to enjoy the hobby? Can silent train layouts be enjoyable?
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Sound used to be very rare. Back in the day there were PFM and PBL systems, but then even the entry level $300 units (10x that in today's $), were so pricey very few had them. So, for the most part silent train layouts were enjoyable enough to keep people interested for 50-60 years. In fact, starting in the 1980s the huge push was to make the locos more quiet (instead of the Hobby Town coffee grinders), and smoother running. We got all that "sound" out, only to start artificially adding it back.

I've been one that has had sound a long time (since 1983 with the PFM Mini Sound II). The first SoundTraxx digital were expensive ($295 per decoder) and pathetic in sound quality compared to the full spectrum PFM. The sound processors have gotten immensely better as have the speakers. When I started, one had to cut the frames of those battery powered transistor radio speakers to get them to fit into tenders and box cars! Anyway, the point is every loco I buy these days has sound. It has gotten so cheap, and such higher quality it is hard to pass up. Plus if one decides they don't like it for a while, there is always F8. Easier to just turn it off then to turn it on when it isn't there.
 
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I purchased a PFM sound system in 1975 the year before we got married. I felt then and for the 4 years I had the system the sound was outstanding. I put it in 6 brass steam locomotives, figured out how to do the speaker install in the tenders and loved it. Until I heard the ESU sound decoders in 2014, I lived without sound in the diesels. I did experiment though with various types.

The sound decoders from TCS, ESU and my current favorite Soundtrax blow anything from the earlier times away. The biggest thing for sound IMO is the speaker. You definitely can hear the difference between the great Scale Sound System speakers and anything else.

Like IronHorseman wrote, use F8 if you don’t want sound
 
I think that, in my personal case, the realism of sound has a lot to do with scale. And the awareness of selective compression and forced perspective plays a big part of that for me.

An easy(?) explanation: Place an O-gauge loco, an HO-scale loco, and an N-scale loco next to each other on a table. Stand back 10 feet or so, then sit or stoop down at eye level, and look at them. Now, with selective compression and forced perspective in mind, imagine each one being a real locomotive, and ask yourself, which one would I most likely hear running if I were that far away from it? Which one would I most likely NOT hear running, if I were that far away from it? And which one may or may I not be able to hear all that well?

Personally, I have no use for sound in N-scale. Maybe cute for a minute or two, but for me, it gets quite annoying in short order. I can live without N-scale sound altogether. HO-scale is kinda' the same way. I can handle it a little better than N-scale sound, but after awhile I can turn it off too and still be quite happy. For instance, being on one side of a basement layout, and hearing the HO-scale sound equipped loco way over on the other side of the layout almost as clearly as if I were still standing next to it just doesn't seem right.

O-gauge/O-scale trains are another story. I have no problem at all with sound in O-gauge, because considering the scale and one's perspective, you're never really that far away from the loco to begin with. You would almost expect to hear the sound coming out of it, no matter where it's at on the layout. So I find it much more believable, and therefore enjoyable, to have sound-equipped O-gauge locos. And still, I'm also fine with shutting off the sound or running my non sound-equipped locos to boot. I don't always have to have the sound on in order to enjoy watching them run. Mainly because running a string of O-gauge cars behind your locomotives makes a fair amount of racket the way it is, with the metal wheels pounding on the metal track and clacking at all the rail joints and banging thru the turnouts and crossings and drowning out the sounds of the locos, just like the real McCoy!

Well, that's my take on my situation. Others will have other takes based on their own personal preferences. As long as YOU enjoy whatever you find enjoyable with (or without) sound, that's the main thing! 🎼🎵🎶;)
 
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