SSB Audio Oddity

k9bm .

Newbie with a 6400, playing the audio through my PC speakers over the LAN.  The SSB audio quality has a peculiarity that I find difficult to describe, and what makes it worse is that I don't notice it on all signals.  But the effect I will try to describe is this:  I tune in a transmission to where I believe I have the speaker's natural voice, but it sounds almost as if he is "double tracking" or harmonizing with himself.  I have never noticed this on any of my old dial radios, in fact when I carefully tune in an SSB signal with the bandwidth relatively wide, it can sound almost as "hi-fi" as a good AM signal.

I suspect what I am describing is the result of settings I have not yet mastered, so I'm hoping that someone a) understands my feeble description of the effect; and b) can point me in the right direction to minimize this effect.  Again, it sounds like the person transmitting has an audio oscillator tracking the frequency of his voice and has superimposed it on his transmission.  That's maybe the best I can describe it. It doesn't seem to matter which bandwidth preset I have selected....

73, Brad K9BM

Martin AA6E

I'm not sure if I follow your description, but a few points:

Check your tuning step size. I usually use 50 Hz, but if you are being super critical, you might do better with 10 or even 1 Hz.

Check your RX equalization. Too much low freq response can be a problem. Use a reasonable "IF" bandpass setting, maybe 150 - 3000 Hz.

Also check your AGC threshold. Generally it wants to be as low as possible without cutting back the baseline noise very much. My opinion.

My received audio is quite good IMO, but there are a lot of bad signals out there. When comparing radios you need to be sure you're comparing apples to apples.

73 Martin AA6E

Ted VE3TRQ

This is a real shot in the dark, but could this be a problem with your sound card and clocking, with some issue between the sample rate of the incoming digital audio and your PC turning it into analogue audio? (I think that is more usually a sampling issue when going frrm analogue to digital.) What happens when you either use an external (USB) sound card or bluetooth headset?

Bill -VA3WTB

Is your RIT RX on and not on 0

Ken - NM9P

I have experienced this occasionally when listening to stations running “hyper-bass” and if I have lo RX filter low-cut set at 50 or below.

David Decoons, wo2x

Another thing to check. Try going to settings/radio settings/rx and do the calibration against WWV. Could be you are slightly off frequency? Dave wo2x

k9bm .

Martin AA6E

N8SDR

Question, are you using the PC settings and possible also have the  speaker output of the flex plugged in to your computer as well? 

Mark_WS7M

Luis del MOlino

k9bm .

Ken - NM9P

No need for embarrassment.  You did good detective work.

This is the first time I have ever heard of that one....Thanks for sharing.

Ken - NM9P

k9bm .

Well it also explains why I noticed it most on strong signals that apparently had wider frequency response microphones (more "hi-fi" transmitted audio).  Anyway, no need to change speaker system, it's very easy to simply turn the subwoofer control on the speaker all the way down when using the Flex.  Thanks for everyone's ideas!