[Elecraft] K3 Harmonic Distortion

[Julian, G4ILO]

The measurements that have been made seem to suggest that the problem is not
regular distortion or clipping. I am wondering if it is some kind of
quantisation effect due to the fact that the signal processing is digital or
analog? I am thinking of the fact that there are people who claim that vinyl
(analog) LPs sound better than CDs, and FM radio sounds better than DAB.

Personally I find it hard to understand what the complaints are about. SSB
signals usually have quite a lot of distortion in any case, due to
compression and ALC and the fact that they are transmitted through an
amplifier whose response would certainly not be described as "linear" by any
hi-fi buff, not to mention any multipath distortion effects introduced by
the ionosphere. It's hard to imagine what the K3 could be doing to the
signal to make it sound worse. I just don't expect hi-fi audio when
listening to the ham bands.

Perhaps the K3 is allowing you to hear the original signal "warts and all",
much as a top-end hi-fi would make recordings that were acceptable on
average equipment sound unpleasant? I do find the K3 audio to have rather
too good a frequency response, and so on mine I have used the RX
equalization to cut the topmost frequency by -16dB and the next one down by
-8dB, which to my ears gives a much more restful sound.

-----
Julian, G4ILO. K2 #392  K3 #222.
http://www.g4ilo.com/ G4ILO's Shack   http://www.ham-directory.com/ Ham
Directory    http://www.g4ilo.com/kcomm.html KComm for Elecraft K2 and K3 
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