Considering upgrading. What do you use?  How much better?

Better microphones are worth it, to a point. Some rules that I'd strongly suggest considering:

1. Never buy a microphone because you want to do your EQ in the mic.

This is the number one mistake. Most notably the number one mistake Heil wants you to make. In the old days when EQ's were a) relatively expensive and b) outside the knowledge base of the average ham, if you wanted a certain "sound" you bought a mic that created that EQ curve in the microphone capsule or cartridge. This works for some people but not all people, and also generally tends to cost a lot for no good reason. The Heil PR40 and the Electrovoice RE27 are the classic examples of this sort of thing. Just say no. It is far less expensive to buy a beautifully flat $100 condenser microphone and a $100 professional equalizer and you'll be $100 to $200 ahead of the game and then you can sound however you like.

Remember also that at the sound pressure levels associated with speech that if you spend more than say $20 for microphone you can EQ it to sound like a $400 RE27. No joke, I EQ'd my shitty Microsoft Lifechat headset to sound like my Behringer B1 (easy to do with free audio signal generator and spectrum analyzer software) and NOBODY can tell the difference when I'm on the air (single blind testing).

2. Never buy a microphone because you want the cable that it comes with.

Again, with so many appliance operators in the game now this becomes a very sad truth. And again you have Heil leading the charge. It sure is compelling to go the no muss, no fuss, no soldering iron route. But then you are terribly limited in your choices. It's worth the effort to know how to wire you own mic, and if you are going with a professional mic that uses a fully balanced, XLR type cable, maybe into a professional equalizer that has fully balanced XLR type inputs and outputs, you are going to have to be able to make that final leap to the radio yourself.

And if you still can't figure out a cable, there are lots of guys on eham and qrz (and maybe even arfcom) that will build what you need for $50.

3. Don't pay more than $100, $150 at the outside.

There are SO many great large diameter condenser mic's at the $100 price point, and some really good dynamic mics, too. Examples of the condenser mic's include the Behringer B1, the MXL770, and the AT2020, just to mention a few. Some dynamic mic examples include the Behringer XM8500 (a Shure SM58 clone) and the venerable Shure SM58, among others.

I like the large diameter condenser mic's because they have ruler flat response and have the sort of sensitivity that very expensive dynamic mic's have without the cost. You do need to blow $25 give or take on a 48V phantom bias supply for them, but that's a very small upcharge. Or if you buy some used audio equipment as discussed below it'll solve that problem for you.

4. If you are going to budget $300 or $400 for microphone, consider that with, for example, any of the $100 condensers mentioned above, you can add $200 of gear on ebay to make you sound phenomenally good, much better than the $400 microphone alone, even if you've got a crappy Icom that limits you to a measly 100-2900Hz transmit passband.

In terms of value, I'm quite partial to dbx. You can find a dbx 286A mic preamp with compressor/desser/expander/enhancer functions for $150ish on ebay. Add to that a dbx 131 31-band EQ for $100ish and you are cooking with gas. If you want to hit it out of the park, add a dbx 166 compressor/limiter/gate for another $100. At $350 for the whole smash, which is lightyears ahead of anything with an "amateur radio" label on it not only from a functional and performance standpoint, but also a value standpoint (example: a W2IHY measly 8-band EQ is highway robbery at $300!)

And understand that any professional compressor or compressor limiter is going to do a MUCH better sounding job than the "speech processor" in any radio (with the exception of the openHPSDR stuf, which has the equivalent of a mini-digital audio workstation built-in).

So how much better can you actually sound on web conference calls? What do you recommend if you're not doing YouTube videos?

I picked up a W2IHY noise gate and 8 band equalizer at nearfest for $100 and connected my SM-20 mic ( $60 at a small ham fest ) and it made a world of difference. Not only does it sound so much better the clarity is much better, it also gets rid of the fan noise from the amp. I never would have bought one for $300

A lot better!

Again, I recommend a large diameter condenser in the $100 range (phased plasma rifle in the 40W range... )

If you are buying strictly for podcasting, web telecon's and that sort of thing then consider a USB microphone There are lots of them but the Rode NT-USB (not the mini version) is probably the best of the breed. It's just a hair over $100.

Alternatively, if you want to leverage a studio microphone for both amateur radio and PC use, consider a professional USB audio interface for the PC. These interfaces have excellent mic preamps, 48V phantom supplies, and will digitize at many different rates up to 192KHz. The Behringer USB202HD can be had for $90. It has outstanding performance, particularly in driver stability and low latency. I have one myself, although it's been kicked to the curb by my rather more expensive Presonus Studio 192 Mobile.

Serious thread drift: if you are podcasting, streaming, or just on web telecon's a lot, then the current gold standard is to process your audio through Voicemeeter Potato. It's a free digital mixing board with a good selection of processing functions including gates, compressors, limiters, etc.

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish and your voice characteristics.
I usually advice against electret microphones simply because they tend to pick up more background noise. Based on my experience, good quality dynamic microphones work very well with all radios, including most Icoms. In some radios you just need to increase gain and add more compression. There are other benefits too. To me, most electrets (condenser type mics) sound a bit edgy with ham radios but I never tried any high end, expensive electrets. Sometimes edgy sounding signal can be beneficial when working DX.
All microphones (different models) tend to sound different. Maybe because I have good ears to hear the differences? You may need to try a few until you find the one you like best.
After that consider purchasing an external, 8 channel, mic equalizer from W2IHY to further tailor it to your voice and your radio (yes, all radios sound different, even with the same microphone). Why W2IHY? Because it's made for ham radios with all appropriate filters and audio isolating transformers.
People who didn't listen to me, wasted money and A LOT OF TIME trying to use other microphone processors but ended up going with the W2IHY. Buy once, cry once. This is what I use along with the PLUS unit. Check into our Arfcom's Tuesday net and hear how it sounds.
Back to microphones again. I like Heil products because they work well and they are designed for ham radio. The company owner is an avid ham with a lot of experience. After a lot of experimenting and multiple trials I ended up with a Heil PR-781. It's not very expensive but it offers excellent speech articulation with great clarity. It doesn't pick up background noises. I constantly get great signal complements. Many hams who thrive for a good sounding station, end up using PR-781 mics. They just sound great but cost a lot less than PR40 or similar high end mics.

If you want a great sounding microphone with dual elements for under $150, get a Heil HM-10XD. It sounds great with most voices. I just purchased and installed these mics on our radios at the clubhouse. We use no external audio processing. The signal on FTDX3000 sounds amazingly good with this microphone. The dual elements give you an option to have a full range sound (with the "wide" element) for rag chewing, or use the "narrow" mic element for hunting DX (makes a crisp, punchy sounding signal).

OP, if you want, I can give you an "on the air" demo on how several various mics sound with and without signal processing.

And that's why you should NOT do your EQ in the microphone. And pay extra for doing it that way! Spend the money you save on an external EQ, then make it sound the way you want, the way that is right for your voice.

Behringer B1: flat, wide, uncolored

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Heil HM-10XD: dramatically unflat, highly tailored, does not work for everyone

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It's also worth noting that Heil typically does not publish any pattern response curves for the mic's. Maybe they are hiding something?

I'm not sure why you are talking about electret mic's, Gyprat? None of the mic's I recommended use electret elements. They all use condenser elements, which are different.

Totally untrue. This is merely a side effect of people using the greater sensitivity of a good condenser microphone for evil instead of good. Unless you live in a true studio environment, mic gain should be set so that any mic is only picking up your voice. That generally means speaking within a few inches of the microphone. But many operators put their mic on a boom mount and sit back two feet. That's doing it the Wrong Way. The only advantage of many dynamic mic's is that they prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot this way because they are simply incapable of that much sensitivity.

Agreed. Just as I wrote, there are many good dynamic mic's that you can buy at prices much more reasonable than those from Heil.

True...

And more compression is needed with dynamic mic's which have frequency responses like that shown for the Heil above because you wind up wanting to bring down that peak at 3KHz and bring up the missing energy from 500-1000Hz. Thus the flatter condenser mic's require less compression and less compression always sounds better and more natural.

Again, condenser ? electret. And they don't sound "edgy" they sound flat, at least without any EQ. That's why EQ is so important. And none of the condensers I recommended were "high end", more "medium end". Remember, I was working at a $100 price point, not a $400 price point.

Remember: at the sound pressure level of the human voice there is very little difference in quality between a $20 electret and a $400 dynamic. It's not like you are mic'ing up a drum kit or Fender amp. It's all about frequency response and condensers are nearly ruler flat whereas dynamics always have some colorization. If you truly want to color your voice, i.e. do EQ in the mic, don't pay Heil prices when there are perfectly capable specimens available for half that.

But if you buy a mic with a flat response and good EQ then you've literally got every mic on the planet within your grasp and you've only bought once. Want your B1 to sound like a Heil? Just adjust the EQ to match.

And I have as many stories that are exactly the opposite.

Gyprat has an unfair advantage. He has a wonderful sounding voice, very distinctive and mellow. With his raw material anything sounds good, and he really should be hiring himself out for voice work, seriously.

I'm partial to EV mics, particularly their N/D dynamics, but that's just me. I don't care for the SM58. Audio-Technica makes some good or at least reasonable mics, as well as Yamaha, Sennheiser and others. I have a couple A-T headsets that I like.

I used a Shure 555 for a while, more for the nostalgia factor than anything.

Some valid points have been made about the ready availability of mic processing/EQ, on the other hand if you can get a sound that you like straight out of the mic why bother. I don't have Gyprat's voice so I'm more picky about mic quality. When I had older radios that you could use about any kind of mic you wanted I experimented with a lot of mics. My current radios are more of a pain for interfacing. I'm trying to work an FT-DX10 into the budget to motivate me to get back on the air on HF. I've wanted to try an EV ND967 on the air, I might well pick one up.

While not a fan of the "Heil DX" tinny sound, I did make a contest headset once with a big Shure dynamic element salvaged from an old GE LMR mic and it was really crisp on voice response... not something I'd want to use for 80m ragchewing, but it made a great Field Day headset.

Back when I was more motivated and had more energy I had the idea of making a ribbon mic... there is a small contingent of people who make their own as a craft. Which is a pretty bad idea as they're very sensitive to RFI so not really the best for radio, but that was just part of the challenge... part of the start of my playing around with and researching ferrites for RFI suppression was due to that idea.

Being involved in the live music business, and ham radio, I can honestly say that this is the BEST post I've ever seen on radio audio advice. You know your stuff, and thank you for sharing it with the masses.

I am partial to the Electro Voice RE20.  The RE series is nice that they have what they call variable D. Which means they don't suffer from proximity effects. They love some compression not a lot. You will find your audio levels are more consistent.    You don't have to worry if you are too close or too far away from the mic.

It's an end addressable but I find it works best at 90 degrees to my face so I am talking across it instead of into it.

The RE20 is the high end of the budget mics at around $450. I call it in the budget class cause there guts out there running very high end Neuman mic worth thousands.

Edit. I didn’t realize this was in the ham area. My apologies. Deleted my post.

One thing I really like about the Kenwood TS-590 is the built in TX and RX Equalizers.

...and free software to set things up.

That is great they offered so many bands on the eq. Makes it easier to trim. Would have been nice if each band had variable Q to alter the bandwidth.

Some of you audio gurs will understand what I mean about falling down the rabbit hole. Yeah I have fallen and can't get up. It's worse than BRD.

Started out buying some budget tube mic preamps because I wanted the warmth and coloring.  

Then I found a deal for a Wheatstone M1 audio processor. They are made 2 hours from me but found a European dealer dropping Wheatstone line. He offered the unit to me for 50% off including shipping to me.

Then I happened to find a used mint condition Aphex 204 aural exciter with big bottom in a Sam Ash store for $200. They get $400 for them on Ebay.

So now I am back to upgrading my mic preamp with either a Bellari RP220 or RP520.

It's a black hole dont get sucked in.

Thanks!

Maybe we should add another "rule" to my list above: just because someone else's settings work for them doesn't mean they will work for you, or anyone else.

Countless times I've heard on the air "Here are my settings..." or "I just sent Billy Bob's settings to Dave, I hope those will fix his audio problem..." If someone sounds bad almost any change might be an improvement. But thinking that there is some magic, universal EQ curve that works for everyone is ludicrous. That said, for mic's with known frequency response deficiencies, flattening those mic's out will be somewhat of a universal change.

While I understand how to set up an audio chain I am by no means a "golden ear". My settings have evolved over literally months of just making certain changes I thought sounded good to me and seeing if the number of unsolicited compliments on my audio went up or down. Many times they went down Because of this, for other than setting overall audio and compression levels, I am usually loathe to help others improve their audio while on the air with them. However, one method I've developed seems to get folks to at least an 80% level of goodness. To that end I will use my panadapter at high zoom (typically 4Hz resolution bandwidth--yes, SDRs are wonderful things!) to look at flattening the audio spectrum I'm receiving from the person requesting help. Of course that person does need a radio with an EQ, or an external EQ. Fill in the holes, knock down the peaks, it's as simple as that for a first order, rough cut on their sound. And for most people this results in wild acclaim on the air from all who listen. It's at least a good starting point, as any further adjustments after that will likely be small and subtle.

So maybe another rule: get flat, then work from there. Of course the problem is that most folks are twiddling the knobs blindly, they have no way to monitor their transmitted audio either aurally or using a spectrum analyzer, be it RF (panadapter) or audio. For those who are serious, a cheap SDR, a tiny antenna to work as a "signal sampler" and some free PC audio analyzer software is not a big stretch to set up.

Can I add the "Follow the Leader Syndrome. Billy Bob gets a W2IHY equalizer and cranks the low end to 11 and everyone in the group thinks he sounds great so they run out and buy the same EQ and do the same thing.

Or the guy that cranks his compression so much you can hear the jet engine in the background blasting.

Then there is the guy that is light to the other guy so he starts shouting like you use to do on a landline phone. I have actually heard this numerous times.

I am just an audio dabbler but first thing my elmer taught me as a kid was proper operation of the radio.

Be honest to the other guy. Everyone is 5x9 Hi Hi If he sounds like crap tell him he sounds like crap.

Kenwood really did a good job on that. Elecraft also offers an eight band EQ. Sadly, as you note, none of those are parametric. The fully parametric, three band EQ in the FTDX10 is also noteworthy. I'm afraid I don't keep up with all the EQ capabilities of the knobified radios, but having a good TX EQ capability is the most important thing to developing good audio.

I really enjoy using the Thetis SDR software with the Apache Labs hardware. Thetis offers a "rackload" of audio functionality built-in.

Right up front is the best expander/VOX/gate in the business. Modelled after the finest professional gear, it features

- Fully programmable attack, hold, release and expansion ratios so that gate and expansion is as natural sounding as possible
- A side-chain trigger filter so typing on your keyboard does not trigger the VOX
- And, most amazing of all, a VOX look-ahead delay line so that first syllables are never dropped or cut-off

There is absolutely nothing like this anywhere else in ham radio and nobody can tell you are running VOX with it

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After that there is the "pre-EQ", which is 10 band and semi-parametric (center freq. only, no Q adjustment):

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Then there is the multi-band, semi-parametric compressor, followed by a post-EQ stage:

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You'll note there is also a phase rotator on that setup page. This actually occurs before the pre-EQ, and is highly prized by the AM operators.

The absolute cherry on top is adaptive predistortion linearization, which has been branded "PureSignal". PureSignal automatically measures the input to the DAC and compares it in real time to the output of the amplifier via an RF coupler using the radio's own receiver. Then the software uses that comparison to pre-distort the output waveform going to the RF DAC (digital to analog converter) so that the output of the amplifier is nearly perfectly linear. Typical improvement in intermodulation distortion (Billy Bob calls this "splatter") is from -35dBc with it off to better than -60dBc with PureSignal activated. Signals like this are the cleanest, best sounding signals in amateur radio.

This display is built into Thetis. The blue and yellow lines show the real time measured non-linearity of the RF chain including my KPA1500 amplifier. The red and green lines represent the pre-distortion applied to the output data just prior to the DAC.

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Elecraft is promising to be the second radio manufacturer to offer linearization. The hardware for it is built into the K4. When they are going to release the K4 software to do this is unknown. Most of the newer amplifiers now include a built-in coupler and coupled output for support of linearization.

Black rack disease?

I also find playing with audio a hugely fun and satisfying part of amateur radio. The only reason I managed to avoid a pile of equipment in a rack is because I fell in love with digital audio workstation (DAW) software instead There's a lot of great, free stuff out there, including Reaper, Ardour, Voicemeeter (the perennial podcaster favorite) and lots of plug-ins (the DAW equivalent of something you screw into the rack). I blew my money on great studio monitors (powered speakers, in this case JBL LSR305's) a really great interface (Presonus Studio 192 Mobile) and a wordclock (Bodnar mini-GPS).

Now that Thetis includes a rack-load of processing, I no longer use the DAW except for some special EQ curves I have to make my microphones all sound like my Behringer B1. And on that note...

Aaack! That's doing your EQ in the preamp. That's as bad as doing your EQ in the microphone

Remember other than sensitivity and SPL dynamic range, neither of which are major issues where the transformation of spoken human speech is concerned, you only need an EQ to make any mic sound like any other mic. In the DAW world they call this "microphone modeling". There are lots of DAW microphone modeling plug-ins you can get.

Those are really great units. You don't need a tube preamp with one of those in the rack.

That's also a smoking deal. The funny thing about that beasty is you've got to have some bottom in your raw material. Without any to start with it just makes things sound muddy. I tried the official Aphex plug-in at one time and unfortunately I don't have the raw material to really make it sing.

There's a cool-factor, to be sure, but I'd spend those $$$ on something else

There are some harmonic effects that add the warmth and coloring that come from using a tube plus the audio transformer. You can't get this from just EQing.

Reason I want to move from budget tube preamps to one of the Bellari units, is budget tube preamps use a low voltage starved plate setup. The Bellari uses full +200 volts on the plate. By doing this it adds some depth that just isn't possible with the cheaper preamps. No I haven't got sucked into the tube swapping game. I just don't think there is not enough purity in a single sideband signal to notice the minute changes different tubes offer.

One thing that becomes obvious when people discuss audio, it is purely subjective. What sounds good to me may sound like crap to someone else. With audio there is more than one way to achieve the same results.

What is the best way to analyze your audio. I have an ic7300 and it has an audio scope, but either I don’t know how to read it or it doesn’t tell me much.

I have tried listening on a web SDR but tough to do while you are talking.

How do I flatten the audio, using the mic does not input pink noise.

Use a pink noise generator up to the mic and then the audio scope on the 7300 and adjust the EQ to get a flat line?

Only thing I can think of but have not tried it yet

Halp

Also is there a way to approximate 100% modulation without specialized equipment?

eta: I have been using the monitor function, but again, tough to ‘hear’ well while you are talking


eta2: I have just discovered I can record my audio on the and card and then play it back, so I will try that

Hi Mach, welcome to the dark side

As you've already discovered, most people have a terrible time listening and speaking simultaneously. And you've already discovered the solution, which is to use a recording. Not all radios have that feature, but those that do give you a big leg up, particularly if you can set it to loop endlessly while you twiddle controls.

Next, unless you have an SDR transceiver that supports full duplex op's like the Apache stuff, the optimum method is to use a local SDR to sample your signal because you want to capture all of the effects of both the audio and RF processing chains all the way out to the antenna connector. Unfortunately the cheapo RTL-SDR USB gadgets don't cover HF freq's very well, if at all. So you have to pony up a few bucks more for a better SDR like an Airspy or SDRPlay. Then make a poor man's sampler out of it by putting a small antenna next to your dummy load.

Or you can try to use a local web SDR, but it is hard to get good performance out of those.

After that it's just a matter of getting the SDR panadapter zoomed in to a sufficiently high resolution so you can see your occupied bandwidth with at least 100Hz, and preferably 10Hz, per pixel.

You don't want to EQ pink noise because it has a tilt that favors the low end. White noise is flat. But you don't want to EQ noise anyhow, you want to EQ your voice. Fill in the holes where the panadapter looks thin, and knock down the peaks. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Finally, where SSB is concerned there is no such thing as 100% modulation. That's an AM parameter. With SSB keep your input levels such that you are getting minimal to no ALC indication on the radio. You also don't need to do this at full power. Make all your adjustments at 10W, then ratchet up the power and see if things continue to hold together. They should be because these are all audio adjustments, not RF adjustments.

Ok thanks, I just played with it recording my transmit audio, but that is no modulated on RF, I did try to use white noise through the microphone without EQ, and it came out as flat, which I find hard to believe with an SM-20 income mic, although it does sell for more than $100

No I have need to hook up the kiwiSDR and a decent speaker to the computer and record the audio demodulated from the RF.

I don’t know how much dark side I am since I am using a W2IHY noise gate and 8 band EQ I picked up at nearest for $100, so far I am going cheap. It does seem to make a hell of a difference though. The noise gate is nice because that ALS-1306 sounds like a jet engine.

I also was not looking at the ALC, so I need to go do that too.

Thanks for the help

Here's what I do.

Adjust and set everything, mic gain, proc, maybe EQ. adjust it all with the ALC and compression meter, if the rig has it.

then I go to something like MIDCARS 7258 and ask how everything sounds.

One of the best ways is to ask locals who know my voice, in person, and on the VHF repeater, to meet me on a quiet band like 10m and tweak it further.

The wonderful TS-590 has 6 different EQ profiles that you can adjust, save and select.

easy to setup for nice sounding rag-chew, or punchy DX

Won't break the bank and are often overlooked by folks.

EV RE135 reporter mic

Rode PodMic

Neat Audio King Bee (used)

Studio Projects B1, B3, C1, or C3 (depending on your use)

MXL v67G

I am going to go at least a little bit against the advice given so far.

For me, #1 is DO NOT USE THE MIC INPUT.
The typical ham radio has filtering built-in. It is tweaked for best communications efficiency. That is probably fine if you spend your life scratching for signals down in the noise, where yours will be too. But the sound is not easy listening for local  contacts. There is also some validity to the idea that the voice characteristics are tweaked to match Japanese voices/language.
I get much better results using the AUX input. On Icom models this goes directly onto the balanced modulator.

You will need a pre-amp/equalizer/etc..
The mic level will not be enough to drive the AUX input, and you do want to restrict the frequency range a bit. Adding some mild compression and a noise gate can make a world of difference.
I use a W2IHY box for this. Yes, you can buy general purpose audio devices much cheaper, but in general they don't seem to be quite as flexible on the I/O side. Julius builds his stuff like a tank, and stands behind it if you have problems.
You don't have to buy his cables - I agree that building your own is really the way to go, but if you need to buy cables, you can be absolutely sure they will work. I spent some time looking at things like Behringer devices before going with W2IHY.

I use a PR-40. It is NOT a capacitor mic as are most of the equivalents, it is Dynamic. So doesn't need the 48v polarizing voltage. These are not built specifically for ham use, they are most often used in the music industry for vocals work. They also get a lot of use for voice-over and podcast work. Would a cheaper mic work? Well, this is ham radio, so we are talking about reduced bandwidth and dynamic range, so yes, in some ways, the mic is probably the least important part of the chain. But if you ever want good audio for other uses, it begins to matter.

I get a lot of compliments on my audio quality, for what that is worth.

A short description of my audio chain is here:  https://k7uf.com/audio.html

This is generally only required for Icom radios, which are the most bandwidth restricted, by far. I used to do this with my old IC-7000. It doesn't really make a difference AFIAK on Kenwood and Yaesu, and definitely not on Flex, Apache or Elecraft.

Actually most people have difficulty speaking without listening... if you're using headphones/headset, almost everyone does better using transmit monitor into the headphones.

It is hard to critically evaluate what you're hearing when you do that though.

Monitor is one of those functions that's often buried in menus but really should be readily available, if you switch between speaker and headphones or the like. Usually digging around to find it on unfamiliar radios at Field Day.

There can be a big difference between monitor audio (aka sidetone) and hearing what's going out over the air.

With the advent of digital audio processing this problem has become fairly serious. There can be so much delay (latency) from mic to the output of speech processing one is often faced with a highly discernible, and highly disconcerting reverb, if not outright echo. In such a case the only way to really make closed loop adjustments is to use a recording that continuously loops on the input. Or do it the open loop, amateur radio way "How's this sound, Frank?" (perfectly beautiful signal goes out over the air) "Oh, that's terrible, I think you have an RFI problem!" Psycho-, or psychotic-acoustics? You never can tell...

FWIW lack of sidetone never bothers me. You'd think it would since I fly with sidetone on the headsets all the time, but on the rare occasion I put on the cans for ham radio I don't miss it at all. But you all know I'm weird

I'm trying to understand it, but I can't. I use stock mic, stock settings. 90% of the guys you're talking to are listening to you on a 50 cent paper cone speaker driven by 2 questionable watts built into their radio with a THD of 1% or more. The add on speakers aren't much better, maybe $3 paper cone in a metal box that they charge $200 for. The noise, the limited bandwidth, the low signal strength and output power... I just don't get it. To top it off half the guys with custom mic setups sound like crap on the air because they started adjusting a bunch of stuff that they don't understand. I'm not a cheap skate and have an audiophile background, can someone explain to me the benefit like I'm 5 years old?

Yaesu MD-200,
i got this for my ftdx 3000 a few years ago.
i got it for a few reasons.
one is i wanted a complete system with quality parts.
two i wanted the system to match by brand so i also got the matching external speaker.
three; it has tech behind it and was purpose built for their system.

ive been very happy with its performance.

I think you've got it figured out

Maybe in the 59, QRZed crowd.  But there are lots of hams that rag chew on 80 and 160 AM and SSB  that have high end radios, big amps, and external sound systems including high end mics and processing for transmit and receive and they sound awesome.

So would you say then that in all of your HF operations every station you hear sounds alike to you? If that's the case then we're done here, there's no way that you would be able to appreciate the difference. This seems unlikely given your "audiophile background".

However, if, like most of us, you often hear a station where you think to yourself, "Wow, he really sounds good, he's got some great audio". Then that's the reason. There's your understanding.

BTW, I absolutely agree with you that a) most "communications speakers" are total junk, and b) most "high end communications speakers" are also total junk. Anyone that's torn down a $270 Elecraft SP4 would be horrified. Nevertheless, clearly the difference is great audio can even be apparent on junk, as otherwise hams would not give signal reports containing the words "Great audio" or things like that.

All that said, folks who want to improve their audio are not necessarily doing it for the great ham unwashed. They take pride in their audio, and their RF quality as well, and while the average ham usually notices a difference, those improvements really come into their own when like meets like on the air. There are enough hams out there who are interested in both transmit and receive audio quality who are listening with receive filters that are quite a bit wider than 100-2700Hz, and who are listening with much better than a 50 cent paper cone. These are the "ham audiophiles", if you will.

Finally, not only is it fun, it's better to have it an not need it then need it and not have it. And if you, as an audiophile, own a very expensive pair of speakers, or a very expensive turntable, etc., then that puts you in the same sort of minority.

Don't forget less fatiguing ear strain to listen to for hours upon hours. Listening to spoken word at 2.6K wide for hours just drains the ears and mind. Much more comfortable to sit back and talk to a group of people at 4K+ wide for hours.

Audiophile then you might have some form of equalizer you use. Take your favorite music play it with everything below 100Hz cut off and everything about 2.7kHz cut off. Now tell me how long you cut sit and listen to music like that.

CW is a different bird than spoken word. Much easier to sit a listen to a singe tone. The problem that causes fatigue is the band background noise.

No, I can definitely tell when someone is running power. I am nearly 100% when I hear a punchy signal and ask what they are running. I can also tell when someone has made themselves into Barry White or some other character. To me, "better" would be a more accurate representation of real life in person, so I can't make that determination. I get that it can be fun and I wouldn't try to talk people out of having fun, but I don't yet get how the expense can make my radio experience better.

You can't take someone with a voice like Todd Christy and make him sound like Barry White the sonic acoustics just aren't there. Majority that run greater than 2.6K are not lower than 200Hz. Only when the guys late at night with empty bands stretch it out to 6 and 8K wide will you hear the sonic elements. Most of the time on my Aphex 204 I have the big bottom turned down because I don't want to waste the rf energy. Now the exciter portion of the 204 is very beneficial at any bandwidth.

Granted there are those that run out and buy an W2IHY box and run the low frequency eq to 11 add a ton of reverb, and think they need to crank the compression. Someone needs to kick them in the butt and tell them here is how it is done. Nope everyone is too busy inflating egos to actually speak the truth that someone sounds crappy.

That has nothing to do with audio quality. Although most of the time you can equate good quality audio with QRO operations. Both are stereotypical characteristics of the sort of person that puts in time, money and attention on obtaining good audio.

The questions are:

- What do you prefer to listen to?
- What does it do to your listening fatigue?

I prefer listening to "DJ" audio, "Barry White" included, with a modicum of compression and good SNR (there's the QRO factor). Whether or not that is a true representation of the person I'm in a QSO with doesn't matter to me. The sound is more pleasant and listening to those sort of signals I can do for hours. Listening to the Tin Man squeak all his power through a pinhole to obtain a mere 6 or 10dB (1 to 1.5 S-units) of SNR is highly fatiguing to me.

If it doesn't make any difference to you, then certainly there is no advantage for those who have put any effort into audio when they are communicating with you. For others there is great benefit.

The effort I've put into my signal quality, both audio and RF, has broken pile-ups on many occasions. And I don't have a 100 foot tower with beams and quads and Yagis, just wire. When the pile-up takes time out of their busy schedule to say "Beautiful signal", I know my effort has not been wasted.

No, but to be fair there are a lot of folks with the raw material to get there--and they always make me jealous because it'll never be me unless I hire a voice actor

That's not true in my experience. Most of the rag-chewers I hang with tend to run 50-3000 or 50-3500, give or take, with occasional forays up to 4K, and rarely 5K. And those settings tend to vary with band conditions. Almost universally folks in this category have good panadapters and will adjust as required to be good bandwidth citizens and even QSY if required.

And honestly that is perfectly fine to go as low as 50Hz. Go down to 20 and the walls will rumble. 50Hz is still below the carrier point and anyone 3KHz on the side of that is not going to hear you I don't care what anyone says. You just aren't going to be in their receiver pass band. If they do hear you then their receiver has problems. Unless you are running a Anan, Flex, Sun, or Elecraft  you aren't going to tx/rx that low. No other off the shelf current radio will do it.

Better mic habits and knowledge of how to set up audio are several orders of magnitude more important than having top line mic hardware.

For instance, a spoof video uploaded as an april fools joke:



I'm amazed how good it sounded on his video, because I used to have and use one and several of us did on our voice server... and it didn't sound anywhere near as good.

In order of priority, good mic habits, good levels(I don't mean eq), at least a moderately quiet room, and finally, knowing what kind of noise your hardware is making and how to squash it without making your audio nasty.  All more important than having a top shelf mic. Screw up any one of those and a good mic will NOT save you. Once you DO have these things pinned down, a good mic can help.

Not an expert, this is based off of seat of the pants using a mic for work and fun for some years.

ETA: lots of good info in here from posters who look a LOT more knowledgeable than I'd ever even think I could be.

I am available for hire.

Maybe it's confirmation bias, but it's always seemed to me that when I make more of an effort to have really good sound via a good mic and a little time tweaking the settings, that it makes it a lot easier to make contacts in a contest setting, even Field Day. If you want to call CQ and hold a frequency, it really helps if you sound like you are holding a frequency. Listen to a pileup and you'll probably find that the people with the best sound are usually the people breaking the pileup... it's not necessarily those with the most power, but the people who are most easily understood. Making it easy and more enjoyable for the op at the other end of the QSO.

The question is, how to safely interface that to modern radios that have voltage on the mic inputs?

Simple capacitor blocking. 0.47-1MFd is enough to stop the DC on the mic input.


Someone brought up the subject of room acoustics. This one gets me the most. We have all heard this. Someone will have great sounding voice and they will be in a live room. What I mean by that is the room is effecting the quality of the audio because of sound reflections. We are NOT  trying to sound like Pavarotti in Carnegie hall.

Monitor your audio or record it direct. You don't need a separate receiver to hear this. If you sound like you are in the smallest room in the house or talking in a big bucket, getting rid of this will help clean up your audio. It will help bring your voice to the front.

Easiest thing to help room acoustics is that if it has hard floors put some carpet down. Do whatever you can to kill the hard reflective surfaces. I have seen guys hang carpet panels from the ceiling.

There is foam acoustic squares you can buy to create some kind of wall design.
I have seen guy take the squares and mount them on plastic poster board and then hang the poster board with there removal 3M removable strips.

I do realize that some are limited as to what room in the house they can operate from. They are stuck with the room or space no one else wants. Maybe it is is a shared space and you got the corner of the room.  

Biggest mistake I see being made is putting the desk right against the wall. You are only 3 to 4 feet from a blank hard surface. If you talk directly towards the wall you are going to get reflections. Put something thick and soft on the wall or between you and the wall.

Sometimes just moving your operating position a few feet one way or another will kill the acoustics.

Just wait until you get into live music recording.

1988-07-02 by FredMan, on Flickr

Gamma,

There are two things one must do to properly interface the balanced output of pro-style (for lack of a better term) audio equipment, or microphone, into the unbalanced mic input of the typical amateur radio.

1. You need to use a balanced-to-unbalanced transformer. An audio balun. Here is an example of a 1:1 ratio, 600 Ohm transformer:

Attached File


As you might expect, they are available in different impedance ratios. This article is an excellent reference.

You need not build one, they are a dime a dozen. This Shure model would almost certainly work fine: https://www.amazon.com/Shure-A85F-Transformer-Female-4-Inch/dp/B0006NMUHW If you search Amazon with "XLR impedance transformer" you will get a wide variety of choices to choose from.

Unlike RF, audio is generally not too picky about perfect impedance matches. If you have got impedances at the right order of magnitude it'll work.

2. Block mic bias voltage if present.

This is really only a problem on Icom radios. Kenwood and Yaesu radios do not provide bias voltage. On Elecraft, Apache and Flex radios the bias can be switched off.

On Icom radios you simply add a series blocking capacitor on the mic input line. Heil uses a 1 microfarad capacitor. You really want a much larger capacitance to ensure low frequency cutoff is well below any frequency you care about. The rough approximation for cutoff frequency (high pass) is f = 1/(2*pi*R*C) where f is in Hertz, R is the input impedance of the radio in Ohms, and C is in farads (not millifarads or microfarads).

Assuming a nominal 10K Ohm input impedance, 1 microfarad cuts off at 16Hz, but it's cheap insurance to use a 10 or even a 100 microfarad capacitor just to make sure cutoff is very low unless space is at a premium. Don't be fooled by microphone impedance spec's in the radio manual. That 600 Ohm impedance microphone is being input into a solid state, high impedance audio amplifier.

Heil probably uses cheap ceramic cap's. Since you are building a one-off and don't care about saving pennies over a 100,000 unit build, get a high quality, low ESR, capacitor designed specifically for audio applications. A favorite in audio circles is the non-polarized, aluminum electrolytic series from Nichicon: https://www.nichicon.co.jp/english/products/pdfs/e-ues.pdf They are like 50 cents a piece at Digikey, Mouser, etc. But you can use any old cap if you want.

Finally, be mindful of actual capacitor values. Too many places will write "mfd" or "MFD" to represent microfarads where it should be properly written as "µF". Don't be accidentally buying something in the millifarad (mF) range.

set your mic gain with the ALC meter and go!




set your mic gain with the ALC meter and go!



set your mic gain with the ALC meter and go!



While you guys are dicking around with your Rush Limbaugh Larper broadcast stations, I'm filling my log with DX and POTA

Check out Jim W6LG on YouTube. He just posted a couple of videos on 3 mics bought on  Amazon. It may not hold much value for your pursuit, but maybe it would for you or someone else

He totally screwed up that test.

Mic #1, the Shure, sounded horrible. He had to have had the bass roll-off and mid-range emphasis switches both on. It sounded like ass. The Shure should have sounded almost exactly like mic #3, the MXL, which is also a great mic. In this case EQ in the mic caused him to shoot himself in the foot.

Both the Shure and the MXL are relatively flat for a dynamic microphone and that is the reason they are so well liked. But that 6dB bump at 120Hz the MXL has is definitely going to provide more of the Barry White effect. OMG, it's EQ in the mic again, imagine that!

Here's the Shure frequency response off the spec. sheet; it had to have been running on the dashed line setting in the video and not the solid line:

Attached File


Here's the MXL frequency response off of its spec. sheet.

Attached File

So to beat a dead horse:

I am thinking of buying a used Shure SM58 to use for $50

Does it need power to the mic?

Is this a decent big diaphragm mic?

It will be connected to a W2IHY Noise gate / 8 band +16 db  equalizer then to my 7300.

Will this sound better than my SM-20 mic using the same W2IHY if adjusted for the SM58.

I am tired of a desk mic and want to go back to a foot switch and a swing mic. I have an Chinese knockoff ( Newer BM-800 ) that was $20 I could use, but does not seem to be unidirectional at all. Picks up a lot of background noise.

Good choice. Nice price. Meat and potatoes mic.

Memorize this: dynamic mic's = no phantom power required, condenser mic's = phantom power required (48VDC for "professional" mic's), electret mic's = bias power required (typically 3 to 8VDC).

The SM58 is a dynamic mic, of course.

The SM58 is not a "big diaphragm" mic. It is a decent mic, though.

Yes.

Another good choice is the Behringer XM8500. It is very similar to the SM58 but a bit more sensitive (so just turn down the gain a little). I've used both and they are essentially interchangeable.

Thanks!