[Elecraft] Thin Audio

[Fred Bongard]

I have been battling a problem with my sideband adapter for the K2. The 
receive audio on both sidebands (upper is much worse than lower) sounds 
very thin. When a station is not tuned, the received static has a tiny 
"shrill" quality. I used spectrogram to align the filters and the 
curves produced very closely resemble those depicted in N0SS 
instructions. Yes, I have checked that the BFO settings are appropriate 
to the "lowest pitch" of the BFO range. I have redone the alignments 
several times and still get the same result. Compared to my other rigs, 
the K2 is much thinner and is reminiscent of an old 6 transistor radio 
compared to a boom box. Even with an external speaker (A Collins 
312B-3) the sound is objectionable. I aligned the CW filters in the 
same way and they work normally. It is fair to say that I have never 
been happy with the sound on sideband. I have checked the SSB adapter 
board for assembly errors, but have found none. It is clear that I am 
either making a systematic error in the alignment procedure, or there 
is something wrong with the adapter. Any and all thoughts would be 
appreciated.

Fred Bongard
WB6JLL