Speaker Information



One of the most important thing with speakers is to get the best sound out of them for the type of locomotive they are fitted in.
You have a verity of speakers to choose from and apart from size you have different Wattages and Ohms.
The Loksound version 3.5 decoder will take a 100 ohm speaker whereas the version 4.0 will take a 8 or 4 ohm minimum speaker.

If the speaker comes with its own sound box then it is important to make sure that the speaker is sealed airtight in its sound box.
Why is this important?
The speaker diaphragm moves to create sound waves.
Sound waves come out of the back of the diaphragm just as much as the front. If the waves from the front can easily meet the waves from the back they cancel out and the resulting sound will be thin and tinny.
Preventing the two from meeting is often done using an enclosure on the back of the speaker but can be done in other ways.
Using an effective speaker enclosure typically increases volume by 50% and makes the sound much more rich and full.

Make sure you seal around all the gaps and holes even where the wires pass through.

PVA glue it ideal for this.

***** Here is a youtube link to ESU’s sugar cube speaker kit. *****

You can of course make your own sound box using the tender for example as a sound box.
Make sure you seal all around any seams in the tender then seal in your custom made speaker including the wires.

Wiring up speakers.

To wire up your speakers is fairly straight forward.
It does not matter which way round the wires are connected if you are wiring up one speaker.
If you wish to wire up two or more speakers you just have to be careful of the impedance of the speakers.
There is a difference in wiring the speakers in parallel and in series.
Please check out the diagrams below but if wiring in parallel make sure that you wire all the positives together and all the negatives together otherwise you could get what is called phasing.