[Elecraft] Hi-Fi SSB with K2 or K2/100?
I did notice much better CW and SSB audio quality, after I went thru all the Spectrogram 5.7 filter adjustments. Some filter/BFO settings were off by a mile - from my first filter adjustments (from manual, at end of build) Fred N3CSY not sure I've got them perfect yet, but MUCH better. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
RE: [Elecraft] Hi-Fi SSB with K2 or K2/100?
Keith KD1E wrote: I don't like the phrase communication quality. It lower's the bar to accept anything that is marginal. It can mean that to many Hams. That term, like so many, are misused in Ham circles. Actually, communications quality is a very demanding level of quality. It means conveying all the critical information for *natural* sounding audio with limited bandwidth. Natural is a very important part of the definition. A really high-quality telephone is an excellent example of good communications quality. Unfortunately, many cellular providers have taught us that less is better. Call up someone on a good wired landline and you'll hear what real communications quality audio is all about. That bandwidth is close to the same as we're using. I do very little SSB work too. My K2 has the SSB module in it, however, so I had to see how good it is. It's 'stock Elecraft' although I equipped the wideband capacitor set Elecraft sells for it. My K2 is equipped with the 160 meter module, so I can tune the upper end of the AM broadcast band with it here in the USA. Plugging a bookshelf speaker into it, my K2 produces broadcast audio every bit as good as most portable AM radios with similar speakers. The limitation is, of course, the 2.6 kHz bandwidth of the I.F. filter, but it's amazing how little that narrow bandwidth is noticed! That same I.F. filter is what shapes the transmit signal. The only remaining variable is the xmit audio channel from the microphone to the balanced modulator. We can turn the compression off, leaving the microphone as the major variable. And, in my experience, microphones tend to vary a great deal when it comes to quality! I use an electret element on my K2. I found that if I set up spectrogram so the waveforms exactly match those shared by many others, my voice sounds muffled. Like a lot of guys I have a very strong drone in my voice. We all do, but with guys it tends to be lower pitched. Lower frequencies use more audio power. The drone basically a carrier sound created by the vocal cords that we modulate with our mouth and lips. It carries most of the audio power and virtually *none* of the intelligence (the modulated part of the voice might not carry much intelligence either, but that's a judgment call for the listener to make). The problem I hear with my voice is that the drone hogs too much of the PEP if I set the filters to roll off as usually shown, and so the higher frequencies, the sibilances (the sound found in the letter s for example), are suppressed. That makes the audio sounds muddy or muffled. Moving the bandpass farther from the carrier reduces the drone and improves the sibilance. It makes a huge difference in the audio, IMO. That goes back to that line in the SSB manual about setting up the filters that I think is all-important: ...experiment with these settings, adjusting them slightly to obtain best voice quality. Ron AC7AC ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] Hi-Fi SSB with K2 or K2/100?
Any of you guys playing with hi-fi SSB with the K2? What have you done to improve the quality of both RX and TX audio in this rig? - Keith KD1E - - K2 5411 - ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] Hi-Fi SSB with K2 or K2/100?
Keith wrote: Any of you guys playing with hi-fi SSB with the K2? What have you done to improve the quality of both RX and TX audio in this rig? I think you need to identify which components of the tx-rx you find deficient that is for communications quality audio,,, or change the word improve to change ...here we are with expectations/perceptions/realities. all big variables at each different callsign. bill h ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] Hi-Fi SSB with K2 or K2/100?
On Thu, 25 May 2006 10:36:24 -0400, Darwin, Keith wrote: Any of you guys playing with hi-fi SSB with the K2? What have you done to improve the quality of both RX and TX audio in this rig? This may sound trite, but I tried my hi-fi stereo headphones instead of my communications headphones. Boy. what a difference!! I suspect, though, that all it does is to allow more white noise and overtones to be heard. My desk mike (Adonis 308) has switch settings for SSB and FM - same theory. The real constriction, though, has got to be the filters in the K2 (or any other rig). With the channels that make up the 60m phone band restricted to 2.8 kHz occupied bandwidth, I will have to live with the 2.6 kHz KSB-1 mod. (I'm one of the ARES/RACES gurus pushing for using 60m for statewide and region-wide comms - one of the several reasons that I got the K2.) The extra 200 Hz in audio bandwidth doesn't mean a thing. Just my two electrons. -- 73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane Elecraft K2/100 5402 From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
RE: [Elecraft] Hi-Fi SSB with K2 or K2/100?
-Original Message- From: Phil Kane This may sound trite, but I tried my hi-fi stereo headphones instead of my communications headphones. Boy. what a difference!! I suspect, though, that all it does is to allow more white noise and overtones to be heard. My desk mike (Adonis 308) has switch settings for SSB and FM - same theory. - Listening with hi-fi headphones can be a real eye (ear) opener. It can show you how noisy the IF and AF sections of your rig are. It can really start to show the difference between good sounding SSB and poor sounding SSB. I hear many signals out there that sound terrible, often from contesters or DXers who think that they'll get more QSOs by turning that knob up further. I've also heard some stunningly lovely signals from guys running studio mics and processing (e.g BBE Sonic Maximizer). To me, hi-fi SSB is a bit misleading. I'm not interested in super-wide bandwidth CD quality sound on 40 meters. On the other hand, having limited bandwidth does not mean the signal has to sound thin / muffled / distorted / etc. I think there is a lot that can be done with the signal to make the quality better while keeping talk power up there and not making the bandwidth overly wide. I don't like the phrase communication quality. It lower's the bar to accept anything that is marginal. I think about the difference in quality between cel-phones and wired phones. Both are about the same bandwidth but the wired phone sounds better. Both are communication quality. One of these days I'll get the SSB option for my K2, set the bandwidth wide, and play with some of my mics / mixer / compressor / parametric EQ. The problem is, I'm having so much fun with CW that I just don't have the motivation to get on SSB. - Keith KD1E - - K2 5411 - ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
