[Elecraft] How loud it i!

[Stuart Rohre]

It always comes up, so I will repeat an old finding on the speaker audio.
Some who had distorted or low audio from K2's in early building, found that
they were warping the mounting of the speaker cone by overtightening the
screws.  There were no washers to take up the room between the flange and
where the flange was supported by the lid.

(A lip on speaker was the guilty party as I recall).  A number of us added
washers or fiber spacers, and evenly tightened the mounting screws for
speaker and had not further problems, and distortion was cured.  A test for
distorted cone alignment is to take two fingers and press in on paper cone
near the voice coil.  IF it seems to rub in the gap around coil or have
uneven resistance, the cone may be distorted from flange induced over
tightening.
Or dust, or metal burrs can get into a voice coil gap and cause binding.

I am not sure if later production used a different speaker, but this is not
an uncommon problem with the small speakers, and other kits and projects I
have seen had to have  washers as well.  It may come from speakers that were
intended to have no metal in front of them, just speaker cloth.
73,
Stuart K5KVH