Sound and Motor Decoders for N Scale Kato SD90/43mac and P40FH


taholmes

Member
When I first bought these 2 locos, I made a bad mistake and put in MRC decoders which have been no end of troubles. So I want to replace them. I am looking for some kind of a drop in decoder replacement. Sound is important but moreso is motor control. I run an NCE powercab -- I found the digitrax SDXN146K1E -- which looks good and digitrax is a good name -- but what I am wondering if there is something better -- I googled for Drop In decoder for Kato SD90/43MAC -- and got a hit on the digitrax one as well as some others that are not obviously sound as well as motor decoders -

So some of you that are DCC gurus -- what do you recommend? and why

TIM
 
First, my opinion of MRC sound decoders is, the only good one is the one in the circular file at the end of your workbench. Second, Digitrax may make a decoder that goes in the SD90, but it's not very good. If you truly want only drop-in, it's pretty much MRC or Digitrax. You may want to broaden your horizons, and see about installing something like a Loksound v5, Soundtraxx Tsunami 2, or TCS. All have their good and bad points, but they all have one thing in common: They're all better than MRC...
I've become something of a Loksound convert over the last few years, but that doesn't mean the others are no good. All of them will require some work to install.
 



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