[Elecraft] Post Dayton Traumatic Stress Syndrome...

[K8TB]

Edward Dickinson III wrote:
 >Therefore I could
 >..use a little enlightenment on your comment below.

    Ed,

       I am talking about a very subjective situation. There are many 
items that can add to a specific radios' "sound", both transmit and 
receive. One area is phase shift, usually caused by an improperly 
designed resistor-capacitor network in a roll-off or bandpass 
configuration. What happens is that a signal at one frequency, say 500 
Hz, is delayed by this circuit for a certain amount of time, and then a 
signal at 1.5 khz is delayed a different amount of time. Your ear cannot 
define this, but it doesn't like it.

    Did you ever notice at field day, that some radios the signal just 
jumps out?  I do not like a perfect AGC in a radio. A perfect AGC will 
keep the audio level the same, for all signal strengths. If the AGC has 
a slope in it, it allows for a certain amount of dynamic range. If you 
set the slope to be a 20:1 ratio, then an S9 signal will be some 4-6 
times louder than an signal in the noise.Some people want a  "perfect" 
AGC. The K3 will let you define it.

    One other area that really effects the audio sound is the distortion 
that different sections of the radio add to signal. The real world 
situation is that many times this distortion cannot be measured. It is 
very easy to do a simple THD or IM distortion check, but then we get 
into whats called TIM, or Transient Intermodulation  Distortion. All 
circuits from the actual product detector to the audio stages proper 
effect this audio quality.

At times the chase for the perfect audio signal does become silly. 
Google around and you can see articles that are written by what I call 
"AudioPhools".

    I have been in the radio broadcast engineering profession for some 
35+ years now. Every few months we learn how simple audio is not.

    But the K3 continues the Elecraft Mojo.

    tom K8TB

p.s., Again, how a certain radio sounds is exceptionally subjective. The 
above sentences are simply my thoughts, and are not valid where 
prohibited.!!