Someone who knows the technical differences?

mSD decoder
(32 Mbit audio memory, 6 audio channels, 16 functions, 4 or 8 Ohms 2.3 W / 1.2 W speakers)
Mono, 12 bit, 16kHz 22kHz

mSD3 decoder
(64 Mbit audio memory, 8 audio channels, 32 functions, 4 or 8 Ohms 2.75 W / 1.6 W speakers)
Mono, 16 or 32 bit, 16kHz 22kHz or 44.1kHz


Feels like Märklin's own documentation is not that consistent with the correct facts

In one place i find 16 bit and 16kHz for mSD3 but nothing about older mSD.

Have they delivered mSD3 both as 32 and 64 audio memory

According to the Marklin cs3 book 03093, the mSD is 12 bit and mSD3 is 16 bit. (CD quality is 16bit, 44.1kHz)
And it seems that mSD3 is using 15.525 kHz. at least my custom sound files (24/16bit,44.1kHz) have been converted to 16-bit 15.5 kHz by the mdecodertool. (Constant Bit rate 248 kb/s, Codec: PCM S16 LE (s16l))

From ESU.EU for LokSound 5:

"Jeder Kanal in 16-Bit-Auflösung und 31250 Hz Samplerate
Geräuschspeicher mit 128 Mbit Kapazität [...]
10 Soundkanäle gleichzeitig abspielbar"

So not 44 kHz, but 16 bit.

ESU LokSound 4 used 12 bit.

I am talking about "encoding" type 8bit PCM... and M want 12bit for the old mSD decoder something between 8 to 16

yes I note article on the net saying mSD3 also support 32bit PCM...


For me its more external sounds, especially from station.

when a user sound file with 32bit 44.1 kHz (PCM) is added to mdecodertool the software converts its down to 16bit 15.525 kHz
and if an 8bit 8kHz file is added it is also upsampled to 16bit 15.525 kHz
And manually trying to use a 32bit or 8 bit 15.525 kHz only gives an error saying invalid resolution. It might also be my software or something I'm not doing right. but manually adding a 16bit 15.525 kHz works fine.
(manually copying the file into the folder with a user sound file in a medecodertool user sound file folder, and renaming it to Start.wav, and not using the crate your own tool)
but Marklin might be able to do things differently themselves........

yes the sound clips is a bit flat and boring, but it helps to add some effects to the clips to simulate a station and some age etc.



I would not be surprised if the msd3 decoder itself is able to handle 12 bit sounds, eg sounds made for the old msd. but eg the Audacity cant make 12bit vaw files. In a quick test, I "tricked" the mdecodertool and loaded an 8 bit 15.525 kHz file onto a mSD3 decoder. but the sound was absolute gibberish. (other standard sounds were fine). but with out some more information about the firmware and decoder speifications its just speculation...... But it would be interesting to try a 12 bit sound file if there was some software available that could make that fairly easily.

Thanks for the Norwegian file :)

to have some voice announcements in 12bit would make sense. and I suspect Marklin uses 12 bit in some of their clips and that older msd3 decoder projects are mostly 12-bit. I haven't downgraded any projects.

So I would like to try 12bit if I could find software that supported it.

you can open decoder projects with e.g. 7-zip (but the files are still encrypted).
but the useful thing is that you take the unique files from a project and add those files to the eigeneBibliothek folder. That way you can later use them in your own custom project.
So e.g. you can easily extract the new station announcement and other sounds from the new rc 5/6 projects and use those in other projects.

changing the file type from .mdtp to .zip will enable you to open it directly in windows explorer as a standard zip file. just remember to change it back before you open it in mdecodertool

Edited by user 04 May 2023 16:10:24(UTC)  | Reason: Added zip info