[Elecraft] Audio K3 not as good as K2

[Tom Hammond]

Hi Ron:

>I read in the previous postings that the CW sounded better on the K2
>than the K3. That is a bit of a worry to me.
>
>Icom has the same problem, and quite often this seems to be a DSP rig
>problem.
>
>How is the SSB souding from the K3 in particular with weak signals
>deep, deep in the noise?

In general, I've received just the very OPPOSITE reports. Most say that
the K3 has some of the very BEST sounding keying that they've heard! And
this from a number of folks whose opinions I value quite highly.

Elecraft (Wayne) had bent over backwards to ensure that there are NO
clicks or artifacts on the K3's keying!  I think he's accomplished this
very admirably.

I'm not much of a SSB operator, and I've only used my FT K3 on SSB a
few time. However I've always received glowing(!) comments on the audio
quality... even from some of the Hi-Fi SSB crowd who called me on the
phone, to get me on the air so they could hear what the K3 was going to
sound like. I obliged them, but told them up front that I was only using
an electret mic, hadn't touched the 8-band audio equalizer (and did not
intend to, at least for those tests), and that I had nothing more than
the 2.8kHz SSB filter available. Those reports I received were very(!)
encouraging... in fat one of the fellas commented that he couldn't WAIT
until he could get a K3 on HIS work bench with a really good mic.

The audio compression of the K3 really adds a lot of punch to the signal
without introducing a large amount of distortion or artifacts, and the
bandwidth does not increase significantly, as it does in some other rigs.

73,

Tom   N0SS