Bachmann Class 117 DMU Sound Issue

There have been some misleading reviews about the new Class 117 released by Bachmann regarding the built in speakers............. Yes they do sound EXTREMELY QUIET as supplied, but..............

The Speakers are housed within the under chassis engine components and have a series of holes on the underside to let the sound escape, nothing new here. When opening the model up to install a DCC decoder and replace the alleged "errant speakers" if going for sound, it is found that there are inverted box-like inner speaker mounts with the factory fitted speakers on top, facing downwards into the boxes, but here's the rub, someone at Bachmann or the Chinese factory has not let any holes in the bottom of the box to let the sound out ............. oops!

I cut the bottom of the boxes off and reassembled the model with an ESU Legoman Biffo decoder, and the difference was immense, no need at all for the replacement speakers sent with the decoder. I'll just specifically repeat that my modification was to the inner speaker box like mount, not the outer mount with the holes on the underside.

The model is absolutely brilliant except for one other issue in my opinion, that of the horrendous couplings between the carriages. I think that these might just about be passable for models with gangway connections, where the couplings will be hidden to a certain extent. However for the early as built (with speed whiskers) models without gangways they are very noticeable. The couplings have 14 pins and sockets so that only one decoder is necessary instead of two or three, and they are HUGE. Bachmann have missed a trick here, they could have used three or four cables with separate connectors which woulod have looked a lot more prototypical, I'm hoping that there will be after-market items available at some point in the future.........

Cheers,

Eve