# New Speakers for Aristo Power



## BodsRailRoad (Jul 26, 2008)

Hi all, 
I am in the process of installing QSI Sound/DCC control on all my Aristo power. That consists of a Mallet, Pacific, E-8, Fa-1, FB-1,U-25, and Dash-9's. 
I would like to know what the best/largest sounding speakers that will fit in each Model are and where to get them. 
I would also like to know if anyone has had any experiance with this company "1 to 1 Scale Sound" it appears to sound good, am wondering on fit in some of my engines, here is the link for them https://home.comcast.net/~leonardk12/rrbog/1%20to%201%20Scale%20Sound.html .

I know that I am asking a lot so no need to answer for every type, but if people could chime in on one or two types that they have most experiance with eventually I'd get the info I seek.

Thanks in advance for your help, Ron


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

You will find that many would put Phoenix at the top rated sound system. However if you have chosen to use QSI sound decoders I would agree that they have good quality sound. Your question is on speakers and speaker enclosures. Most of my insulations have been in USA loco's, I simply sealed the speaker to the opening provided and used the body shell for the enclosure. They have sounded pretty good. I have read about others building an enclosure in a tender or locomotive to improve sound quality. Iam surprised I have not heard of the company you have found. Looks like they may have a good product, give one a try and let us know how it sounds.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Ron:You will find that most Aristo locos come with speakers. The U-boat has no speaker and depending on how new the FA is may have speaker also. They work quite well with the QSI sounds. The only loco I used a custom speaker in was the Mallet as the speaker is mounted in the boiler. Later RJD


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

In general, the thing lacking from large scale sound systems is bass response. It's inevitable--small speakers, small enclosures, low wattage equals poor bass repsonse, it's just a fact of physics. You can get great sounding highs and mids with a small speaker, but youve got to find a way to fake the bass. 


More speakers is a good thing but you have to be careful that you don't bring the impedance too low. Two 8 ohm speakers equals a 4 ohm load, which is fine for Phoenix ( i think) and also for QSI (I think). But a third 8 ohm speaker will fry the board


I've looked at that site al lot and I'm not clear on what he's doing--how does he manage to run four speakers off a single QSI card, for example? Maybe he has a source for small 16 ohm speakers. And he is running, it seems, one large speaker ina large enclosure nd two smaller speakers in smaller enclosures. Is he setting up some kind of crossover network, to send the highs to one set of speakers and the lows to another? It looks very interesting, but there isn't a lot of solid info there. 


I mounted a speaker in the boiler of both a Pacific and a Mikado, a trick I learned from RJ Deberg. There's a whole in the chassis, up near the smokebox, the goes clear down to the track. You need to remove the weight and cut some of it away--save the cut off part and then hot glue it to the top of the old weight.

It's certainly more trouble than just usng the speaker in the tender, but IMHO it sounds much better to have the chuffing coming from the smokebox than from the tender. 

I also did a lot of experiements with "porting" the boiler to improve the low frequency response. I took a brass tube about half and inch by 2.5 inches, drilled a hole in the backhead, and inserted the tube. It markedly improved bass response in tboth the Pacific and the MIkado. I did a post about it here and also in the Aristo forum, if you're interested 



I also recently tried porting an LGB powered tender and the results were not good--I think it may sound worse


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## Road Foreman (Jan 2, 2008)

lownote, 

You can put speakers in parallel or series.. In series & parallel you have to keep the polarity the same.. If you use 3 speakers, 2 in parallel & 1 in series the resistance would be 12.. Most of the sound boards have a range from a low of 4 ohms to a high of around 32 ohms.. The low resistance is very critical as the that causes the most current or power in the board.. The higher the resistance the less the current draw.. Hope this helps.. 

BulletBob


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