SpeakEZ User Evaluation.
By Phil Chiavetta and Steve Zeff.

There is nothing like sound to add realism to a model railroad layout, and for HO DCC enthusiasts, there is currently no better choice than the line of DCC sound decoders offered by Soundtraxx.

We have converted our fleet of steam locomotives over to sound using DSD-150 decoders. There is usually plenty of room in the tender for both the decoder and speaker. We used homemade speaker enclosures (a pain to build) to enhance the sound and were very happy with the results.

On the other hand, we were disappointed with the sounds produced with Soundtraxx diesel decoders. We tried various types of speakers, multiple speakers, and various types of homemade speaker enclosures. The sound was always 'tinny' and relatively low in volume - simply not satisfactory.

We then tried Tony's new SpeakEZ speaker enclosures with the diesel version of the new Soundtraxx DSD-100LC decoder. Voila !! We obtained generic diesel sounds that were every bit as good in sound quality as the steam sounds we were accustomed to hearing !! We attribute this entirely to the well manufactured speaker enclosures that provide a perfect fit to Tony's 1.1 inch and 3/4 inch round speakers.

We have used the enclosures in 33 installations to date with both speaker sizes and both with and without the enclosure 'expansion' ring. The resulting sound has far exceeded our expectations.

We then retrofitted a speaker enclosure into one of our steam locos. While the sound quality did not seem to improve very much, we found we could reduce the volume setting of the decoder by about 30% and still have the same sound output. Again, this is as a result of the snug fit between the enclosure and speaker. Reducing the volume has had the effect, we believe, of lowering distortion and extending speaker life.

We welcome comments or suggestions from readers; please write or call.