From my, limited, experience what works for one may not necessarily work for another. For my limited DCC loco fleet I've used a mix of the Hornby and Bachmann 8pin decoders (not the Bachmann 21 pin one I haven't tried that yet) and have been satisfied there nothing special but they get the job done however these will not be suitable for some locos and I more specialist Chip will be required. It also depends on what you want them to do, the Hornby or Bachmann 8 pin decoder may give satisfactory performance in a loco but a specialist one may give superb performance equally it could be the other way around. My advice is to ask in your local model shop when you buy a Chip what they would recommend for the loco you want to fit it to at that time.

Thankyou for your advice,i will contact a shop.

thanks

David

You have to decide what functions, e.g. sound etc that you want. Only then can you choose a decoder.

When you are new to DCC don't be temped to mix and match equipment from several manufacturers.

Julie