ORIGINAL: YHR
The only drawback I see is the stick mapping. That will take some getting use to. If it delivers as advertised, this will be an incredible value. You can wire it up to accept a TBU as well, which for standardization is great. The only thing it doesn't do, is allow you to program your own sounds, but at $ 60 I think I could live with that. Only Tiger sounds available as well right now, but I am sure more are coming.
As soon as this arrives I will test it, and give you an update. It has a 3 watt output as well, so that should be plenty loud enough. There are quite a few people on the UK forum who have one on the way as well. There should be a lot of consumer reviews on it soon.
The TK 20 is $ 60, the TK 30 is $90. I believe the TK 30 is a better quality sound, but it is still in the prototype stage. Either way this is some pretty serious competition for all the others.
Cheers
The first TK-20 batch very well may be all Tiger sounds used in it, but the boards will be intended to be used for all German tanks, not just Tiger tanks. This is why the TK-20 might not be everyone's cup of tea, specifically because the intended sound sets released are going to be very limited, as well as sounds cannot be changed as you mentioned. There will be no other specific German sound sets created for other German tanks, at least that wasn't the plan revealed by Clark for the TK-20 boards.
Next on the sound set release list for the TK-20 boards was supposed to be a single Russian sound package, to be followed by a single Allied sound package, on something like a monthly schedule for each set's release. So even though each package may be using all the sounds for a particular tank, & might be perfect for that tank, they would also have to be used for any similar armor from the same nation. Maybe at some point Clark will release sound sets for various tanks from the same nation on the TK-20, but doubtful, because that seems to be the plan for the TK-30 boards, which definitely will have better sound. The TK-30 boards will be offered in various tank specific sound sets to correctly portray each specific tank model, not just for portraying all the armor from a single nation like the TK-20. As far as I know Clark hasn't provided a full or even partial list yet of the various tanks he will be creating sounds packages up for the TK-30 boards, but the first batch of the boards will also have Tiger sounds.
Things may have changed in the way of plans for the boards since my last contact with Clark, but that is what I had learned, so If anyone knows more accurate up to date information, please correct anything or everything I've stated if need be, thanks.
~ Craig ~