Large Scale Central

LGB sound car disappointment

Electronics Power and Sound
#1

I bought a LGB Lake George and Boulder sound car, the maroon one off everyones favorite auction site and I’m a bit disappointed in it. What is nice it has the pickup wheels so I don’t need to run it plugged into a LGB engine. The bad is it doesn’t sound good at all. In fact I don’t know if it is supposed to be a diesel or steam sound? I have 2 LGB coke cars that play jingles and a LGB 2-4-0 with sound and I think they sound really good.

The car is maroon and the card reads LGB4267-35-1 Am I expecting too much from this car?
Does anyone have this car and are you happy with the sound that comes out of it?

#2

Possibly a bad speaker esp if it got wet.

I always place a cup (yogurt or italian ice) over the speaker in these cars and get much better sound.

#3

The maroon one has diesel sound.

Andrew

#4

You are correct Garratt, after another listen this one is defiantly diesel. I ran it around behind my S4 and it isn’t that bad. I paid about $40 for it. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to pay the MSRP though I bet it was well over $100 back in the day.

I still expected more from LGB because my other sound cars are really good. My steam engines are now jealous though so I’m going to have to do something for them in the way of sound.

The yogurt cup is a good idea Dan I’m gonna try that Thanks.

#5

You have a whole boxcar in space. You could try a larger speaker with better frequency response to help get rid of the tinny sound. Make sure the speaker is same Ohms and baffled in it’s own enclosure so the back and front sound waves don’t cancel out each other.

Andrew

#6

Dan Pierce said:

Possibly a bad speaker esp if it got wet.

I always place a cup (yogurt or italian ice) over the speaker in these cars and get much better sound.

Filling said cup with fiber (cotton, or the like) will help cut down on reverb, too.

#7

I tried different sized cups on the speaker and the best was a 1 liter bottle cut down a bit but I couldn’t have it sticking out the roof so I cut it as short as possible and it sounds much better.
I might have to try the cotton as well.

Thanks guys.

#8

Todd Haskins said:

I tried different sized cups on the speaker and the best was a 1 liter bottle cut down a bit but I couldn’t have it sticking out the roof so I cut it as short as possible and it sounds much better.
I might have to try the cotton as well.

Thanks guys.

It works really well. I was surprised. I used a cotton handkerchief, just as a proof of concept, and it worked so well that i never bothered to change that one out.