Are Digitrax, NCE, and MRC No-Sound Decoders Essentially Equal?

[Nscale]

I'm going to be buying a basic, no sound decoder for an Atlas GP-15 locomotive, and I've found that Digitrax, NCE, and MRC (and possibly others) manufacture a decoder for this particular train. Generally speaking, is one brand of decoder considered superior among the others, or are they all essentially created equal?

Also, since I'm going for a no-sound decoder, I'd think that they would all be fairly similar in terms of features. However, when comparing various decoders for the same train, is it possible that one manufacturer's decoder would have more features or capabilities than the others?

 

[wright2626]

of the three, i have had numerous issues with the mrc decoders.

 

[kjd]

I would stay away from MRC. Other than that they are similar and each company makes different decoders with different features such as physical size, number of outputs, BEMF, lighting effects, etc. As with most things, some do one or another thing better than the others. Personally, I have NCE, Digitrax, TCS and Soundtraxx decoders but mostly use NCE. I tried to use an MRC one once and after two trips back to NJ it still didn't work right.

 

[Espeefan]

I would agree with Paul. Digitrax, NCE and TCS are pretty much the same quality wise. Features do differ slightly. Read the manuals for them. You can download all of them from the manufacturer's websites. You won't see much difference from a performance standpoint. I have used all of them, and with the exception of the MRC decoder, found them to be equal. The MRC decoders I do have experience with are the low budget ones that come in Bachmann trolleys and their DCC onboard stuff. These can be glitchy. I would not recommend them.

 

[Cjcrescent]

Yeah, all the better decoders are all roughly equal in quality and functionality. I don't know why MRC decoders are so flaky, but with them they are a complete crap shoot. Their sound decoders aren't any better, and in many ways they are worse.