[Elecraft] oh no, another crazy audio idea from Holland

[Brendan Minish]

On Tue, 2009-04-28 at 00:16 -0700, pd0psb wrote:

> 
> I aware though that dynamics processing in audio is an artform as such.
> Frequency-dependent (or "multiband") dynamics processing multiplies all
> variables so is an even higher art :-)
> 
> But it is capable of very well controlled results with a minimum of
> artifacts!

In the pro Audio world compression is a different game to the AGC in a
receiver.
In music we are controlling dynamic range over a few dB only, even over
this limited range it's arguable that this results in 'minimum
artefacts' but then most of my work in pro audio was spent working with
Acoustic Music with an inherent large dynamic range, even small ( a few
dB on transients etc) can alter the overall colour of a recording in
unacceptable ways, This is one of the reasons that I used to go to a
very good mastering engineer in a separate mastering studio when we
needed to muck about with the overall Dynamic range of a good acoustic
recording .

In Rock/pop and in broadcast radio the effects of multi-band compression
are easy to hear and often not very pleasant at all to listen to
although they have long been part of the overall 'sound'  


The K3 has an excellent AGC, if you wish to weight it towards the lower
(af) frequency then try AGC SFT (Soft) in the new firmware and set some
slope. AGH HLD is also a great feature, RACAL used an AGC system like
this on the RA-3720 and it's wonderful to see the same AGC feature in
the K3.
Experiment with the release speed and threshold too.
transient reject is already in there and has been for a long time (AGC
PLS = NOR) the K3 ran rings around my Icom 7800 in this regard, the only
thing I miss about the 7800 is all the money I lost in deprecation
whilst I owned it.


Multi (audio) band AGC belongs in outboard gear if this is something you
really feel will add to your enjoyment of the radio

Multi-band compression (IF DONE RIGHT..) may further improve the average
power in SSB whilst maintaining intelligibility, However most of the
Multiband processed audio I hear on the HF bands is too wide (lots of LF
energy complete with the in-band IMD it can cause) or over-done, enough
fidelity is lost that it actually degrades the ability to copy the
station on a noisy band. 

73
Brendan EI6IZ
-- 
Don‘t complain. Nobody will understand. Or care. And certainly don‘t try
to fix the situation yourself. It‘s dangerous. Leave it to a highly
untrained, unqualified, expendable professional.