Just a little moan.....

[centenary]

As the title says, just a little moan so forgive my indulgence!

Im slowly adding sound decoders to my locos. These things aint cheap with a decent speaker at around £125 and for the life of me, really wonder at the profit margin the sound file creators are asking for.

Id be surprised if the sound chip cost more than a fiver to make. The probability is likely nearer a few pence or so. A blank Loksound retails for around £90 which in itself seems inflated when you're paying for the same loksound decoder with sound file and speaker for £125!

Anyhoo, that's not my moan! I ordered a sound decoder for my Heljan DP2. I appreciate there's no official DP2 recording and the Class 50 was used instead. However, the sounds and functions on the decoder are very limited. There's literally 12 sounds and functions available while other sound decoders have as many as 30!

Very disappointed to have paid £125 for such limited features. Ive no complaints over the engine sound, it's the lack of other sounds and features that irks me. If it had been advertised as only having 12 functions, Id have just bought a bog standard non sound decoder instead. The other decoders I have from the same manufacturer and supply have been feature packed so it seems, this is just a one off for me.

Have you have any loco specific sound decoders that have failed to meet your expectations with limited functionality?

[aleopardstail]

thing that puts me off sound decoders..

its not at all clear how the hell you load a sound profile on them, is this something you can do yourself? (this is the huge lead Hornby have with their ones). and when buying "sound fitted!" its not always clear what decoder is being used

don't own a sound fitted one, I wouldn't mind but I want something that has RailCom support, not using it yet but I do plan to

as for price, yes excessive, cost is debatable, they won't be hugely expensive to have made but the development of the design and software has to be considered, costs for sound files comes down to how hard they are to make, the lack of you tube videos on "this is how I gave my Class 20 a sound file to play music or fart effects!" tends to suggest its not trivial

[RAF96]

To get an idea of how complex the making of a sound file is go onto the ESU website where they used to have a series of how-to tutorials along with all the example files. To actually do the job you will need a programmer (each manufacturer ESU, Zimo has their own) the programmer software and a blank decoder, but you can work thru' the tutorials without them just to get a feel for it.
They have a lot of ready made files you can load with your programmer, but likely not the one you desperately heed.
To do it yourself from scratch get a hi end recorder and an example of your chosen loco with a friendly footplate crew to do the running for you.Then spend days editing those recordings to suit your needs.
Then you can see where the developer costs come from.
The Hornby kit does not need a programmer as the app does that function instead, so a tad cheaper in cost and effort.

[aleopardstail]

thats what I figured, same with PIC microcontrollers, lovely chips but the Arduino (AtMega based) and ESP type chips are light years easier to work with (no special programmers needed).

don't really begrudge the bods doing sound what they charge however as Hornby have shown it can be a hell of a lot more user friendly these days

[Mountain]

To be honest, the high prices are not just with sound decoders, but for model railways in general. This is mainly due to more than one reason. The first were due to an attempt between the two largest manufacturers in the past to monopolize the industry and who can blame them for that, as massive loans were offered at next to nothing in interest at the time, and several other well known manufacturers were either going through hard times, or their owners were retiring, so opportunities were taken and buyout deals done. Obviously those were good times and now we have tough financial times, the only means to pay off these long term investments is to increase the costs.
The second reason is, the general lack of trade amongst buyers in the hobby as a knock on effect of the lack of trade. Secondhand has never sold for such high prices due to the demands shifting away from new due to the high prices.
But also most countries in the west are not doing too well so we also have most people in tough financial situations. The knock on effect hits industries like ours, so the ever decreasing potential customers means that more money is needed per sale to keep the various companies and businesses going.

Let's take another small business. Resin casting. Some of us who do our own casting realize too well that the actual costs involved in resin costs are very little. Example, is that the cost in resin for a lococomotive body which consists of several parts is going to be less than a few pounds, and don't take a lot of time to cast. (Yes, one leaves them an hour or two to ensure the resin properly hardens, but one can often remove them from moulds in less than an hour. 20 minutes for some thin pieces if one is careful! Yet they sell for £30 and up. Why? It is the numbers being cast per week that need one to compensate to give one a weekly wage and cover all other costs, along with the hope of obtaining a pension etc. Yes, there are development costs, and other costs involved. But it is an example of why the costs to the customer are a lot more than those of us who are hobbyists who have tried it ourselves, will often be puzzled why their prices are so high...

[aleopardstail]

day job used to be commercial pricing, well aware the connection between cost and price is tenuous at best, also have done resin casting, mostly table top gaming stuff for personal use, these days mostly 3d printing but if I wanted a lot of something, say barrels for wagon loads or coal loads for open wagons (like 20+ of them) I'd still be tempted to make maybe two, make moulds and resin pour them.

its a real shame Hornby didn't put the RailCOM stuff if the HM7000, apparently they thought "its got bluetooth, why would it need Railcom?" not realising they are totally different use cases - e.g. Railcom is good at "hello I am locomotive 1234 and I am in the block of track yo8u are listening to" as the way Hornby have simplified the sound stuff is genius

frankly other companies need to get onboard, even if just for sound but ideally programming more generally if not actually driving over bluetooth or similar

the "you need a dedicated programmer and special software" stuff is 20+ years ago technology