Hi-Fi SSB with K2 or K2/100?

[Darwin, Keith]

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 -
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[Bill Steffey NY9H]

  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

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[Phil Kane-2]

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



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[Darwin, Keith]

 
-----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 -


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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

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

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