[Elecraft] K3 Mic adjustment - How not to do it. :<)

[Brett Howard]

Perhaps you could use the DVR (if you had it) to record your voice and
then play it back...

~Brett


On Sun, 2010-02-14 at 19:58 -0800, Bob - W0GI wrote:
> Well K3 number 3903 has been online for 12 days now. I bought it mostly for
> CW and digital, but a few days ago, I figured I should wire up a mic. So
> since I have a few Yaesu hand mics, I rewired the 8-pin plug for the K3.
> 
> That worked fine, but setting the EQ has been a nightmare. Monitoring from
> the K3 headphone jack and the receive on the Mark-V sounded weird, like it
> was through DSP noise reduction. I tried other dynamic mics in the rear
> panel and still, just a strange hollow sound.
> 
> Tonight, I decided to make an MP3 recording to send to Elecraft tomorrow, to
> see what is wrong with my otherwise perfect K3. Guess what, nothing is
> wrong? It sounds normal.
> 
> Now I realize that there is a small delay as the audio is run through the
> ADC, DSP, then DAC. It is only a few milliseconds, but when the headphone
> audio is mixed with your actual voice through bone conduction to the
> eardrums, you have a weird audio effect that is not true to the actual
> sound. The EQ is also impossible to adjust properly. My on the air reports
> were not good, as I had way too much high end EQ set to counter the lows
> from bone conduction.
> 
> So my conclusion is that the only way to do it right, is to transmit to a
> seperate receiver that is feeding audio into a soundcard. Record the audio,
> then play it back.
> 
> This effect doesn't seem as significant with an analog (no delay) audio
> chain, but I bet I can get the Mark-V sounding better by recording reception
> of the Mark-V on the K3. 
> 
> Maybe I can get on the Elecraft SSB net next Sunday to see if this all
> works. :>)
> 
> Hope this makes some sense, and helps others with audio setup.
> 
> 73 - Bob 
> 
> 
>