Kato DD51 Sound Card (22-271-1) Deep Dive & Review

This article follows on from my long look at the Kato Sound Box and the C11 steam locomotive sound card. You might want to read that first to get a better understanding of how the Kato Sound Box works and how it compares to the on-board DCC sound features more familiar to European and American railway modellers.

Background

The DD51 is probably the best-known Japanese diesel locomotive. Introduced in 1962, a total of 649 were built and they enjoyed an extremely long and successful career on the Japanese railway both before and after privatisation. JR Freight inherited the majority of them, putting them to good use on heavy freight trains (often coupled together in pairs) and they remained in service until 2021. As it happens, Kato designed the sound card to match the 'A-Updated' DD51s based at the Aichi depot like the one Kato produce as model 7008-H. The other companies owned smaller numbers using them on passenger trains, particularly sleeper trains.

It makes sense then that Kato have produced a sound card for a numerous, long-lived diesel class. Compared to the C11 card, this card is a Sound Priority card, which means that it is designed to provide a more immersive experience right from the start. Where the C11 card was quite easy to use with few subtleties, the DD51 card rewards careful use.

DD51 Sound card (22-271-1)

What's in the box?

• DD51 sound card with removable protector for the exposed electrical contacts
• English and Japanese instructions on the backing card
• Removable (bilingual) card that sits on the Sound Box control panel

Like most Kato sound cards, this one comes with the packaging that will slide open so that the card can be returned after it has been used, the cardboard sliding back over the plastic blister, keeping it safe until next time. That's important because the copper contacts on the sound card are delicate and if scratched or snapped would render the card useless.

Using the DD51 card

When you plug the card into the Sound Box and press the button to switch the sound effects on, you immediately hear a start-up sequence. The engine then ticks over until you adjust the throttle. Before you do that, though, try pressing and holding down button #6 — the engine now shuts down. Quite a nifty effect if you're just starting a running session and want to 'park' the loco while you think about what you want to do. Pressing #6 again starts the engine up once more, and button #1 blows the whistle, which you might want to do before setting off, just to let your N scale people know the engine is about to move!

So far, so simple. When you turn the throttle up slowly the engine doesn't immediately start to move. Instead, what happens is that the engine revs up until the driver notches up the throttle and the locomotive starts to move, and then it slowly accelerates to simulate the momentum of a heavy train. You can adjust the rate at which this happens using the Sync dial: more negative and the process happens more slowly (as if pulling a really heavy freight train) or more positive to speed things up (better suited to when running light engine or toying with one or two wagons in a yard).

Obviously, the point to this is to simulate how trains really work, and the need for careful driving if you want to start or stop the train within the limits of your layout. But there's an extra feature if you stop just short of the wagon or coach you want to couple up to. Hold down #5 while turning the controller throttle and the locomotive will move instantly, just as if you were using a traditional controller. Even better, it will still play the proper sequence of sounds, like the motor revving, it just speeds up the sequence to match the controller.

For whatever reason, this doesn't work when braking a train from speed though. If you are tootling along and need to stop quickly, pressing and holding #5 won't do anything to speed up the stopping process. So, you're left with either waiting until the train slows down slowly or else immediately stopping the train using the Eject button.

In any event, once the train is running the engine revs up when you increase speed, and if you reduce speed, you'll hear the engine idle until you increase the speed again. The voltage to the model isn't changing any, so the motor is working as hard as it was, but the sound effects have changed to make it sound like the diesel engines inside the locomotive are idling. When the model works harder, perhaps by going up a steep slope, the Sound Box detects the change in Back EMF and the sounds now change to the diesels revving up as they tackle the increased workload. It's all very clever.

The card details six main features, one for each button:

1. Whistle (3 tones to choose from: press #1 and #2 together to select: Eject button goes red, press #1 to cycle through them, then #2 to lock down your choice)
2. Coupler (alternates between coupling and uncoupling)
3. Brake (application when moving, release when stationary)
4. ATS (button toggles the sound on or off)
5. Engine straight to idle (also used for stopping adjustment as described above)
6. Engine start-up/shut down sequence (plays coupler slack clanks while moving)

Inside the Sound Box there's a nifty 'comic book' that lays out (in English and Japanese) ways to use sound cards to 'tell a story' as you drive the train. Steam, electric, diesel, and multiple unit examples are given — rather generic examples, but enough to make it clear how you can use the sound card creatively.

So, imagine the DD51 in a yard, waiting to pick up some container flats before hauling them out and onto the mainline. Your driving experience at the Sound Box might be something like this:

• Check controller is in reverse
• Turn throttle all the way down
• Press #6 if you need to start the engine up — not usually necessary
• Check Sync is slightly negative to simulate momentum (-1 to -2 seem fine to me)
• Press #1 quickly to give a quick warning to any N scale people standing too close!
• Slowly dial the controller up to less than 25% full voltage — have faith in the excellent flywheel-equipped, 5-pole motor! It'll take some time before the loco starts to move, but when it does, it'll crawl towards the wagons
• Within 5 cm of the wagons, turn the throttle down to zero
• You can use the Start dial very effectively to tweak the speed of the locomotive: turn it positive to make the engine inch forward faster, turn it negative to slow it down — this gives you on-the-fly fine tuning that'll stop you missing the wagons before you stop or crashing into them because you're going too fast!
• Press #2 to hear the coupling sound
• Change the direction on the controller to forwards
• Optionally, dial the Sync setting to even more negative to simulate the momentum of a heavy load
• Press #1 quickly and then a second time for a longer 'toot' to get the traditional Japanese pattern to indicate the driver is ready to move forwards
• Slowly turn the controller up to around 25% to accelerate the train out of the siding

As you can see, there's a lot going on, which underscores the point that the Kato Sound Box is more than just passive sound effects playing in the background. To really use the system well, you can use other dials (specifically, the Sync and Start dials) alongside the throttle to get the full immersive experience.

But there's more! If Sound Priority mode isn't your cup of tea, and you want the locomotive to act in response to the throttle just like it would without the Sound Box, you can toggle over to Controller Priority mode by pressing #3 and #5 at the same time. When the green light over the Sync dial flashes, the Sound Box no longer simulates momentum. 

You can use the Start and Sync dials in this mode though. Turning the Start dial down, even as far as -4, effectively damps down the response from the throttle, so that the locomotive doesn't start moving until you've turned the throttle up quite a way. Sound effects are moderated accordingly, so you don't have the sight and sound of the model roaring away too quickly. The Sync dial sets how quickly the sound effects cycle up and down the 'notches' as the speed of the diesel engines change. Turn the dial towards the positive numbers (+2, for example) and it cycles through the notches faster, giving a more satisfying range of sounds from the engines even though the model itself is still moving relatively slowly.

Incidentally, the sound card remembers which of the two modes it was used in last. Switching between this done using that #3 and #5 button combination mentioned before, the flashing green LED over the Sync dial indicating that the change has happened. When it flashes, the card is in Controller Priority mode, but when it stays on constantly, you're in Sound Priority mode.

Conclusion

While the C11 card was relatively straightforward, the more I play around with this card, the more I respected the clever engineering that went into it. Of course, if you want to use it for plain vanilla background sounds, the Controller Sync mode gives you that. However, the Sound Priority mode really is something else: immersive, quite fiddly to use at first, but ultimately very rewarding.

Kato have a full listing of their sound cards on their website, here, and if you click through to the page for the DD51 sound card, you can hear a preview of the sound effects described in this post. With a retail price of ¥2,900 (around £12) the value seems hard to fault, assuming you already have a Sound Box to play it on.