[Elecraft] K3 AM reception

[Jim Garland]

I've been reading a thread on another email reflector about the K3's audio
response on AM. One of the reflector participants is a serious SWBC listener
and is very dissatisfied with his K3's AM audio. He has pointed out a few
things about the K3 AM response which puzzle me. Here they are:

"My K3 sounds the same as others I've heard which I consider to be
absolutely terrible when using an external speaker and beyond absolutely
terrible when using the internal speaker! The 6KHz roofing filter in the K3
will provide an audio bandwidth of up to 3KHz and the FM 13KHz roofing
filter will enable the DSP to provide the user with an audio bandwidth of
approximately 4.5KHz I've been told by Elecraft." 

He also says that "Re the bandwidth, a short time ago Elecraft made a mod to
the firmware so that audio bandwidth and not IF bandwidth was displayed on
the K3's screen. If you're seeing 5KHz and you don't have FM filter
installed then it sounds like yet another bug."

His particular complaint is audio clicks on AM when hard consonants (Ts, Ks,
etc) are spoken, a problem that he says has been confirmed by other users.
He has installed all the audio mods in his radio, but they didn't fix the
problem.

This was all news to me. I've not used my K3 extensively on AM, and maybe my
ears aren't as sensitive as his, but I've not noticed any problem. I have
the 6 kHz roofing filter in my radio, and the DSP BW goes up to 5 kHz, which
he says is a bug, and that the actual BW is only 3kHz.

So my questions are: (1) Is audio distortion on AM a known problem with the
K3? (2) What does the LCD BW actually read? Is it an IF BW, an audio BW, or
what, and does the displayed BW actually corresond to reality?

Tnx,

Jim W8ZR