All: I have no issues with lack of "punch" with the K3, and I am considered an audio "dweeb" by some of my contesting contemporaries.
On my former TS-850, I had "lotsa punch". My audio chain consisted of the following: Heil DX-4 headset Behringer EuroRack 802 mixer with three band "classic" EQ Radio Design Labs ST-GCA2 limiter/leveler/AGC Behringer MDX-2600 Compressor/Gate Home made precision T-Pad line to mic level interface microHAM microKEYER It made nice, crisp "razor sharp" audio that cut through piles, if a little "dirty" at the edges. "Thin" sounding but penetrating. Now, I have the following audio chain with my K3: Yamaha CM-500 headset microHAM microKEYER 2 And I feel I have the same punch, but with a little difference... I how have some minor bass "presence" at around 300-400hz that I couldnt get with the DX4, thanks to the very nice EQ built in to the K3 and the very broad CM-500 capsule. And I have none of the "grunge" around the edges that I had with the 850. The K3 is much cleaner. I have the same peak to average ratios, as witnessed by my scope waveforms, the same "penetration" and the same "punch", but with a mellower, cleaner, less "thin" sound. It has taken me six months of tweaking and the Yamaha headset to get to to where I am 98% happy with K3 transmit audio. I have a very noisy shack environment, so there are some caveats: First, the DX4 is a "close talking" microphone. You have to almost eat it for it to work right. The CM-500'ds Electret capsule has a pronounced proximity effect. You HAVE to keep it AT LEAST an inch from your mouth or it sounds mushy and bassy. This, combined with its omnidirectional response and the need to run mic gain relatively high to command good peak to average ratios from the K3 processor, cause "much" room noise (not a lot really, but Im picky) to find its way to the transmitter. Second, I could fix this with the AF GATE function, but the gate has and issue (to me) that it does not have enough hysteresis, that is, it drops RIGHT NOW, and when it drops, it drops IMMEDIATELY off the cliff with a straight as a ruler response. WHAM! Audio's GONE! I have worked with the IHY product at the Multi-Multi I work with (we have standardized on it for all positions now using TenTec Orions) and I find both my old Behringer and Julius' Gate to have a logarithmic ramping (the gate ation starts slow and speeds up over time) plus there is some hysterisis in the gate's response to instantaneous noise spikes, so these two are not as "nervous sounding" as the K3 gate is. As it is, the K3 gate responds so very quickly that it adds a "crackle" to the audio because it partially triggers with small noise spikes (lacks hysteresis and immediately turns on and off). The effect is rather annoying and spoils the gate's effectiveness. But the processor works so well now that I will put up with the gate till Lyle can get around to it. Other than those niggling comments, Im a happy camper with a much simpler audio chain. Simple is better! The key to remember is that we are transmitting into a very noisy medium (the HF bands during a contest). You need to do two major things: Sacrifice wide "dynamic range" in your transmit waveform for effective communications and concentrate your available transmit power into the frequency bands that will do you the most good for inteligibility. Bass below 300hz is your enemy! If you do this while maintaining the highest possible peak to average ratio with the lowest distortion figures your transmitter can muster, you will be heard and, most importantly, you will be UNDERSTOOD. And it helps to have proper enounciation skills (ask any ATC or pilot!) This is not as simple to do as it sounds. It takes discipline with mic technique and voice projection BEFORE you apply any digital processor "magic". Garbage in - Garbage out! Then there's VooDoo... I always put a 3x5 card on the monitor that says "I AM LOUD". If you think you are, you are! Lu Romero W4LT - #3192 Message: 10 Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2010 20:52:41 -0500 From: "Jim Miller KG0KP" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] SSB transmit audio - Where's the punch? To: <[email protected]> Message-ID: <d6c7d2f59e51421a9944095de3f9d...@hmjm1800> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Don't get it too high. Higher is NOT necessarily better. I hear station in contests that are very strong and they are almost impossible to understand because they have their compression WAY to high. Turning it down would make them much better. I just made 1752 contacts in a special event and got many unsolicited comments on my audio being very good, excellent, etc. I was running the HC4 and the mic gain at 25 and the compression at 25. My voice is relatively low. 73, de Jim KG0KP ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: "Dick, WN3R" <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 1:11 PM Subject: Re: [Elecraft] SSB transmit audio - Where's the punch? > Dick, > > You use "some compression"? Crank it up! > > Dump the external EQ, and use either the HC-4 or HC-5 (no bias) and crank > the TX EQ bands up or down until it sounds nasty enough. You'll generally > reduce the lows and increase the highs. > > Crank up the compression and it'll sound as bad as the Yaesu does. > > Your fellow contester's claim reveals his lack of knowledge about the K3 > as it can be adjusted to sound any way you want, with nearly any > microphone. > > Generally speaking, if it doesn't sound right, crank it up. > > 73, > > Bob W5OV > > P.S. I know that audio purists will not like the above advice. But, you > are looking to bust pileups, not get an audio quality award. > > >> I need some advice in how to get the same punch my fellow contester gets >> on >> his FT-1000MP. He claims the K-3 audio will never be as good as Yaesu, >> Kenwood, or ICOM. >> >> >> >> Yesterday we spent several hours between ourselves and several European >> stations tuning and testing. I never got a bad audio report, BUT I never >> got a report I had the same PUNCH!!! He reduced power and still >> overtalked >> me. >> >> >> >> I have tried HC-4, HC-5, and HC-6 using W2IHY eight band EQ with the >> EQPlus >> with some compression from the K-3. >> >> >> >> I need some ideas before the next contest. >> >> >> >> 73, Dick, WN3R >> >> >> ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
