MTH SD70Ace & SD70M-2

[montyvox]

Good morning-

Does or has anyone seen the new MTH SD70 series line yet?

I saw the video they posted on their website, and the SD70Ace looks nice, but I would be looking for a SD70M-2, and for some reason, it just doesn't look as nice.

I would be curious to see what they look/run like.

Thanks
Matt

[wvsecondary]

I was at my LHS on Monday and they stated that they were absolutely beautiful and it sold itself. This was coming from someone who has custom built and painted several hundred units in his time. Kind of wish I had preordered more than one now but will wait and see for myself.

[CIOR]

From what I've seen of them, I wouldn't waste my money.
There are too many details that stick out badly and the actual detail is just fussy from a mold standpoint.
I can't comment on the drive, as my local hobby shop won't carry this engine unless someone here orders it and no one here is wasting their money.

[diesel]

Well I wanna wait for the Athearn unit too. I saw the only prototype at the Hartford show this past summer and even incomplete, with entire panels not yet done, it looked good.

The MTH has, so I've heard sound for DC, DCC and their own DCC. I think that's a $250 cluster problem. But I could just be overguessing.

The tower 55s were supposed to be the coolest thing on the planet and I don't think the sound is all that great. The ES 44 is in pieces now. 2 dips in chamelon and it's still not totally clean. Maybe the gell....

[bcrmlw]

There are some photos posted over at the Atlas forums, some of the issues detail wise are oversize and incorrect handrails, truck detail not having enough depth, and some paint/lettering issues. The sound is OK, kind of hard to tell in the video as the volume is at 100% so everything is distorted. I'd wait for the Athearn/T55 model myself.
-Trevor

[Freightrain]

The MTH SD70ACe fuel tank radius is out of whack as well, I cannot stand the crappy, slapped together, rushed it to market quality of this loco... I will wait till a better ACe comes out.

[Raeder]

Hi all,

I seriously looked into purchasing a MTH SD70ACe, and I found all kinds of interesting stuff. From all I've been able to find out, MTH's DCS system does not play well with others, either. Model Railroader mentions some of the deficiencies in their review of one of the steam loco's MTH came out with, the 2-8-8-8-2 Triplex, I think. The next review they did of an HO scale MTH unit barely touched on the electronics side of things. A good sign there is something wrong if they don't write much about it, because they usually write a blurb about changing the address and horn or bell or something like that. Obviously they don't want to make a good advertiser look bad, so they just didn't say anything at all.

If you are running DCC, expect to have problems with these units when you change the address, speed match, that sort of thing. I did some reading over at Tony's Train Exchange and they didn't have much good to say about the internal electronics either. MTH designed it to work with their system first, and all other's second, if at all.

They may have the first ACe, but I agree with the others, wait for the Athearn Genesis ACe to come out. Another four or five months, it should be here. And between Athearn Genesis, which is very good quality, and Tsunami sound, which is right at the top of the sound-decoder market with QSI, I know my money would be better spent on the Athearn unit.

Kevin