[Elecraft] Sound perception

[Brian Lloyd]

On Nov 4, 2008, at 6:12 PM, Jim Miller wrote:

> IMHO, Sound perception is probably one of the most variable things  
> of all.  For instance, MY hearing is 10 dB down up to about 1500 Hz  
> and by 1700 Hz it is 50 dB down for the remainder of the spectrum.   
> I asked the audiologist what was considered totally deaf - she said  
> 70 dB was deaf.  (and I thought I could hear just fine, almost,  
> except for my wife (higher frequency and softer voice)and I didn't  
> need to hear her anyway, LOL)
>
> Does anyone think the way I adjust my audio would be the same as the  
> way they like it.  I doubt it.  Trying to answer a question of what  
> is the best for audio for any one person OR situation is virtually  
> impossible.
>
> I do use the original Heil headset with the HC4 element and the  
> original Goldline with the HC5 and full-range elements.

Well, there are two parts to this. One is a function of frequency  
response and the other is a function of distortion products. Many of  
us are suffering from varying degrees of hearing loss. I suffer from  
tinnitus (ringing of the ears) which can mask some of the high- 
frequency content from the voice, usually women's voices. (My wife  
occasionally accuses me of selective hearing. :-) Anyway, I do benefit  
from using headphones and providing a bit of a boost to the higher  
frequencies, e.g. starting at around 1KHz with boost increasing to  
around +6dB at 3KHz. You can make this sort of improvement with a  
graphical or parametric equalizer. (I prefer parametric myself but  
they are hard to come by.)

Distortion products typically impart either a "warm, fat sound"; i.e.  
low order, mostly 2nd harmonic; or a "hard, edgy sound"; i.e. high  
order. Either can obscure readability to some extent. One of the  
reasons the old tube rigs were so pleasant to listen to is because  
they had almost no high-order distortion. It was almost all 2nd and a  
touch of 3rd. I could listen to my Hammerlund HQ-180X all day and all  
night very happily with no ear fatigue.

If you suffer from that hard, edgy, fatiguing sound, try stealing the  
signal before it gets to the built-in audio amp and feed it to a good  
hi-fi amp to see what you hear. Get the signal right from the detector  
if you can. It can make a *huge* difference. (My experience is that  
most manufacturers of ham gear really skimp on the quality of the  
audio chain.)

Brian Lloyd
Granite Bay Montessori School          9330 Sierra College Bl
brian AT gbmontessori DOT com          Roseville, CA 95661
+1.916.367.2131 (voice)                +1.791.912.8170 (fax)

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