[Elecraft] K3 audio output v headphone sensitiviy

[Jim Brown]

On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:22:42 -0700, David Yarnes wrote:

>I'll add my displeasure as well with regard to Heil headphones.  

I don't know anything specific about Heil headsets (except that 
the electronics in some that I've used at contest stations have 
bad RFI problems). 

I work in the pro audio world, and my ears are nearly 67 years 
old. In other words, I'm an EE, a trained listener, and I've got 
some hearing loss, like anyone of my age. I own several types of 
pro headphones, all of which work VERY well with every ham rig 
I've ever plugged them into. They sound good, are plenty loud, are 
well built, and are comfortable to wear through a long contest 
weekend. 

They are the Etymotic Research ER4, the Shure E3 and E4, and the 
Sony MDR-7506 and MDR-V6. The Shure products are designed for use 
by musicians on stage, and have recently acquired new model 
numbers to avoid confusion with competing products. 

There is a more detailed discussion of audio and headphones in one 
of the appendices of my tutorial on RFI, ferrites, common mode 
chokes, and audio interfacing.

http://audiosystemsgroup.com/RFI-Ham.pdf

Another ham recently noted in a private email that he had tried a 
set of specialized earphones with a peaky response supposedly 
tailored for "communications" and found that they rang very badly. 
That doesn't surprise me. Good communications headphones should 
have flat, neutral, accurate response with minimal distortion and 
phase shift. The human ear/brain does not like peaky response or 
phase shift. We have plenty of it our radios, and designers of 
those radios work very hard to make it well behaved. The last 
thing we need is more of it in our headphones. 

73,

Jim Brown K9YC