JX: Amen!  Back in the day, as I have a tendency to say nowadays....(55 years hamming) when a lot of gear was built the builder WANTED to know what his audio sounded like.  With SSB it was automatically assumed that the audio was terrible.  After many years of this hams started to take steps to improve the sound of SSB signals and have made a great deal of progress to this end. 

The April issue of QST has a very nice article on this very subject.  Rather you care about quality audio or not, there is a great deal of information provided in that article that we all need to be aware of.  If nothing else, it could help prevent splatter, broad signals and other problems.  This is part of that "can't we all just get along." :-) 

W2IHY makes a great living selling audio improvement equipment for Amateur radio, so for some of you "naysayers" not everyone shares in your sentiments.  If you want to sound like garbage, so be it.  If you want to sound good, that's your business as well.  Having high quality audio does not walk hand in hand with splatter.  But if you own junk, you will RX and TX junk, if you own decent gear you will hear decent signals. 

I've opted to sound good by spending a few bucks improving my station, if you want to operate a tuna can transmitter, go ahead but don't expect to make many contacts sounding like trash.  There are radios that sound great with a D104 and some that don't.  Heil makes some great mics and some I would toss in the trash, it's a mix and match thing until you get it right.  When I hear splatter, it's usually a junk box 6 khz away and not an audiophile.  You reap what you sow.  Stop hatin! 

audio which is primarily the mid-range portion of the human voice (i.e. 300 to 2400 Hz.)  carries better over long distances.  It is frequency-efficient on crowded bands.  The downside is that this type of narrow audio is not very enjoyable to listen to in a ragchew.  The wider audio is much more pleasant to listen to for extended periods, but is not good for contesting, DX chasing, or use on crowded bands.  Let's say that a ham is running ESSB (50 to 5000 Hz), and his signal strength is very weak into your receiver.  You might only be able to hear the bass portion of his voice, in which case you will not be able to understand what he is saying. 

Very well said.  I have been researching this subject in some books I have here, and your statement would have been a good addition to them. 

Have you ever heard a very weak, ordinary SSB signal that sounded very weak when tuned to his frequency, but when you tuned way off frequency where you are hearing the "highs", he sounded much louder?  All he has to do is change his audio and you would understand him if you tuned back to his frequency. :-) 

I see there's an article here (http://www.eham.net/articles/25501) that advocates making a D-104 bassy-sounding by changing the value of the load impedance.  I have experimented as much with that than probably anything else I have ever done.  I take exception to his line of reasoning.  The technology and logic behind the 100K load impedance is a very firmly established fact.  A 2.5 meg load might be fine for live audio, but it has no place in weak-signal SSB radio communications! 

On another note, one trick I have used over the years to pull weak SSB signals out of the noise is to null out the received frequency range from about 700 to 1400 Hz.  There is often a spectral gap in the human voice there, and nulling out that range simply nulls out QRN but not the portion of the voice necessary to understand what's being said. 

Their is nothing in the world wrong with having good sounding audio and using audio equipment but on the same note it can be overdone and over the top sometimes.  Personally I don't like thin sounding dx audio.  It's too rough on the ears and annoying to listen to.  Their are some great mics out there that sound really good just running straight into the rig.  Remember this, not everybody likes the same thing and that's what makes it a great hobby.  If you have a problem with the audio folks then that's what your VFO is for, use it.  That's what I do. 

"On another note, one trick I have used over the years to pull weak SSB signals out of the noise is to null out the received frequency range from about 700 to 1400 Hz.  There is often a spectral gap in the human voice there, and nulling out that range simply nulls out QRN but not the portion of the voice necessary to understand what's being said." 

Some ham used to make a filter that did just that, took out the mids, peaked each end.  Had a adjustable cf so you could tailor it to your ears or something like that.  A simple eq should be able to pull this off, or just some hardwired parts once you know where to notch for your ears.  I still find that in most cases a wider rx bandwidth makes it easier for me to understand the tx. 

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If you have a clumsy child, you make them wear a helmet.  If you have death prone children, you keep a few clones of them in your lab. 

So some hams really like to do research, spend money on expensivemicrophones & EQ's to make their audio the best that it can be. Big effing deal! 

Why should anyone care?  I have been on HF for 25 years,albeit a lot of that on CW, yet I have yet to hear anyone splatteringall over the place due to their enhanced audio. 

Come on guys, who are we to trash another ham'sarea of interest of expertise that he finds enjoyable and rewarding?Have we REALLY become THAT cliquish?What happened to "Live and Let Live?". 

If you don't like it, then turn the VFO (big knob in the center!),breath deeply and repeat: It's only a hobby!  It's only a hobby.......

It's been my experience in life that folks who find fault in or criticize thehobbies/interests of others are either:1) Jealous themselves.2) Are themselves boring and insular non thinkers. 

Over the years I have spent, and have enough money tied up in, QRP kitsand homebrew projects that I could have easily instead purchased(another) really nice modern 100w-200w commercial fully featured transceiver. 

But I do this because I really enjoy the satisfaction that comes with asuccessful "Smoke Test", hearing signals come out of something I put together with myown two clumsy hands, and even more, hearing someone come back to meand telling him "Rig here is homebrew" or "Rig here is XXX QRP kit with homebrew amp". 

I guess, I'm one of the "unfortunates" that HAVE to alter their audio !! For quite a few years, I constantly got very average reports on my audio,( bassy, muffled etc) to the extent, that I sometimes changed a radio !! Then one day, I happened to be on a 160m net, and a very good friend called in. AH !,  he happily told everyone, that they were all wrong, because if they ever met me, my voice sounded EXACTLY like it did on the radio !! Talk about blow me over with a feather !! Result?I DON'T use the Heil HC5 cart anymore, or any other dynamic cart (not even my Neumann U87 I tried in desperation once from my pro recording studio !!)  as they simply are TO REAL !! I use a Heil proset IC, with some tweaking on the internal eq on the 7700, and BINGO !! Great to fantastic audio reports, using abnormal frequency shaping where I DON'T EVEN SOUND LIKE ME hi hi ! So, you might THINK James Earl Jones would have it cracked, but don't be to sure !!! Oh, and the reason I didn't want to start using outboard gear in the shack to "correct" my voice, was that I do it for a living, and don't want to be staring at gear 24/7 !!  I also believe in the KISS system regards rf etc, so with an amp running, all the sophisticated outboard stuff WOULD be hammered ( I know, because it's bad enough keeping the studio "quiet"), let alone it sitting 3 feet away from large glowing devices. Some of you whiny voiced hams are sooooooooooooo lucky !! 

I would not be so bold.  I have heard some CW OP's with very poor fists or are equally unskilled with electronic keyers.  Neither mode is more immune that the other to bad practices and its quality depends on the skills, knowledge, abilities and practices of operator controlling it. 

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--------------------------------------Ham since 1969.... Old School 20wpm REAL Extra Class..

If CW was an best way to communicate, there would be no mikes on ham radios.  That would kill the hobby for sure!  It has its place in poor conditions when the signal needs to get through or for introverts that do not want to hear another human voice. 

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