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Author Topic: Listening fatigue IC 7300  (Read 2152 times)

K9IUQ

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #45 on: December 04, 2020, 07:46:28 AM »


not to stir up trouble, BUT the 7600 and the 7610 are totally different architecture, and I would ASSume that they would sound different. But I don't have a 7600 to compare my 7610 against. 

Fair, enough, but every Icom from my 751A to the 7600 sounded about the same. So bring your 7610 to my shack and we will use your 7610 in a blind test. Warning, while I do not own a 7610 I do have a local ham friend that has one and I have played with it so I do have an inkling of it's abilities.

Stan K9IUQ

That would be a good test to have the 7600, 7610, and FTDX101MP all lined up to listen to.  Might as well bring a 7300 along too right?  :)

Better yet, bring a twelve-pack of your favorite brew. We will have them all sounding great....

Stan K9IUQ
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VR2AX

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #46 on: December 04, 2020, 07:54:15 AM »

I checked out my 7300 today just out of curiosity. Conditions 3.7 MHz SSB, no antenna connected, standard SSB filter and tone control settings, RF and AF both at 12 o'clock, preamp off.

Internal speaker - very noticeable 'hiss' or high frequency wind tunnel like audio. Turning preamp 1 on no change, preamp 2 seems to increase the noice but only slightly

SP-38 external speaker - pretty much the same

SP-20 external speaker - with audio filters off very little difference, although the SP-20 generally projects the audio much better than the internal speaker. Switched in LPF 1 and noticed very slight reduction in the hiss (2.4 kHz cut off - 3dB). LPF 2 reduced the audible hiss considerably (800 Hz cut off at - 3dB)

When I used to use the SP-20 with a R9000 receiver I did not detect any hiss even with the audio control fully open.

Recently using my 751AF just with its internal speaker I did not notice any significant similar noise under similar conditions. Also a 7410, there was some hiss, but very subjectively I think less.

Also have a Yaesu 818 and 897D both of which I would rate as noisier than the 7300. My Yaesu 991 however seems less so.

I have not experienced any fatigue from using the 7300 however I think it depends very much on the individual. I probably prefer listening to SSB and even CW at slightly higher tones than some people.
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K0UA

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #47 on: December 04, 2020, 08:07:16 AM »


not to stir up trouble, BUT the 7600 and the 7610 are totally different architecture, and I would ASSume that they would sound different. But I don't have a 7600 to compare my 7610 against. 

Fair, enough, but every Icom from my 751A to the 7600 sounded about the same. So bring your 7610 to my shack and we will use your 7610 in a blind test. Warning, while I do not own a 7610 I do have a local ham friend that has one and I have played with it so I do have an inkling of it's abilities.

Stan K9IUQ

That would be a good test to have the 7600, 7610, and FTDX101MP all lined up to listen to.  Might as well bring a 7300 along too right?  :)

Better yet, bring a twelve-pack of your favorite brew. We will have them all sounding great....

Stan K9IUQ

Yeah, kinda like closing time at the bar, and all the old lounge lizards start looking really good . :)
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73  James K0UA

W9IQ

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #48 on: December 04, 2020, 08:09:07 AM »

There are some good smart phone apps that render the microphone audio input in the frequency domain. You may consider using one of those for your experiments in order to remove some of the subjectivity.

- Glenn W9IQ
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- Glenn W9IQ

God runs electromagnetics on Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the wave theory and the devil runs it on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday by the Quantum theory.

N2DTS

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #49 on: December 04, 2020, 09:06:55 AM »

What is my bias?
I have no care as to the brand of radio I use.
I only have preferences as to what I like.
I do not own stock in any company, I do not get paid to like or not a brand.

If Icom had the audio quality and range I want, I would have one of those as I like the ergonomics and features like mouse control.
But their audio is very limited.

Its a FACT that Flex allows you to set the bandwidth to whatever you want, RX and TX, to EQ it, to adjust the filter on RX to whatever you want and see it on the screen.

My only bias is good audio and full control over it.



None of that might matter to some/most.
That does not make it untrue though.

It only matters to you. What you posted are your opinions, and having an opinion does not make it a fact or true. I too have owned countless different radios including Flexradio, Kenwood, Yaesu and Icom. My opinion may differ than yours, this does not make it a fact or true. Every ham has opinions on radios and every ham has bias of some kind or another.

Many hams here on ham feel a duty to defend and promote the radio that is sitting in front of them, especially when someone is posting an opinion that goes against the radio they love.

None of it matters to most of us, Everyone here knows I have a bias on Flexradio, K0UA has a bias on Icoms , W6UV has a Flexradio bias and your bias is pretty evident too.

None of that matters to most  of us. We see what we want to see and most of us have blinders around our eyes like a horse.

Stan K9IUQ
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W6UV

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #50 on: December 04, 2020, 09:56:38 AM »

What is my bias?
I have no care as to the brand of radio I use.
I only have preferences as to what I like.
I do not own stock in any company, I do not get paid to like or not a brand.

Same here, but it seems like anyone who owns a Flex and mentions anything about it on this forum (other than criticizing it, of course) is biased and a Flex fanboy.

I admit that I like my Flex-6500. It's been 100% reliable for me, in both hardware and software, for the seven years I've owned it. During that period I've worked over 300 entities on CW with it. With that said, I'll drop it like a hot potato as soon as something better comes along. So far, though, nothing has.
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K9IUQ

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #51 on: December 04, 2020, 10:01:54 AM »

What is my bias?

I only have preferences as to what I like.


Bias and preference are closely related. A first indication of bias is when a person denies he has a bias.

Bias is a natural inclination for or against an idea, RADIO, group, or individual. It is often learned and is highly dependent on variables like a person's socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, educational background, etc. Biases are also developed from life's experience.

Peer pressure also affects a person's bias. You hang with a certain radio group and you will develop more bias.

For instance I hang with Yaesu ham io.groups, I definitely have a bias with Yaesu radio. I have had a 50 year association with Icom radios. I definitely have Icom bias. I had an extremely unpleasant encounter with the Flexradio Company and the Flex 5K radio. Because of this I have a bias of Flexradio. I have lots of other bias too, including political bias and these were all developed by MY life experiences. Your experiences are different than mine, therefore your bias is different from mine, but to deny bias is not being truthful.

Everyone has bias..

Stan K9IUQ
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VE3WGO

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #52 on: December 04, 2020, 11:12:14 AM »

What is the most common cause of this listening fatigue?  Is it the high frequency hiss, or is it perhaps intermod distortion in the audio signal?  Has anyone measured the audio spectrum output of their annoying radio?

73, Ed
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K7JQ

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #53 on: December 04, 2020, 11:30:47 AM »

More of my $.02. I had a Icom 7600 for 6 years, and bought a 7300 as a backup, as I didn't want a radio to crap out during a contest and leave me hanging. After a year of alternating the two in many contests, IMO the 7300 was simply the better radio all around, so I sold the 7600 and bought another 7300. The 7600 only had Audio Peak Filter and Dual Receive over the 7300, which I very seldom used anyway (some will disagree with me).

The RX audio in the 7300 sounded better to my ears. But I maintain, It *ALL* depends on the speaker...I don't care what radio you have. Ham radio transceivers are not audiophile-quality products. The internal speakers are top-firing and tiny, a compromise at best. For aesthetics, I bought a pristine used matching SP-38 (I won't pay ridiculous retail prices for matching speakers), which is 4", front-firing, and a deep cabinet. Due to its size, it emphasizes the high frequencies, and provides crisp communications-type audio, easier to distinguish voices, but also a little harsh, which might be considered fatiguing to some. I have an old DCM audio system speaker hanging around, which uses 8" and 3" drivers. I put a switch between the two, and compared. What a difference! The noise/hiss was virtually gone, voices were warmer and more mellow...easier to listen to when ragchewing. But there's reasons to use both, depending on band conditions and operating preferences. When contesting, I always use mic/boom headphones.

Then again, a crappy muffled, distorted transmitted signal will sound crappy on whatever speaker you use ;).

Bob K7JQ
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K0UA

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #54 on: December 04, 2020, 11:59:39 AM »

More of my $.02. I had a Icom 7600 for 6 years, and bought a 7300 as a backup, as I didn't want a radio to crap out during a contest and leave me hanging. After a year of alternating the two in many contests, IMO the 7300 was simply the better radio all around, so I sold the 7600 and bought another 7300. The 7600 only had Audio Peak Filter and Dual Receive over the 7300, which I very seldom used anyway (some will disagree with me).

The RX audio in the 7300 sounded better to my ears. But I maintain, It *ALL* depends on the speaker...I don't care what radio you have. Ham radio transceivers are not audiophile-quality products. The internal speakers are top-firing and tiny, a compromise at best. For aesthetics, I bought a pristine used matching SP-38 (I won't pay ridiculous retail prices for matching speakers), which is 4", front-firing, and a deep cabinet. Due to its size, it emphasizes the high frequencies, and provides crisp communications-type audio, easier to distinguish voices, but also a little harsh, which might be considered fatiguing to some. I have an old DCM audio system speaker hanging around, which uses 8" and 3" drivers. I put a switch between the two, and compared. What a difference! The noise/hiss was virtually gone, voices were warmer and more mellow...easier to listen to when ragchewing. But there's reasons to use both, depending on band conditions and operating preferences. When contesting, I always use mic/boom headphones.

Then again, a crappy muffled, distorted transmitted signal will sound crappy on whatever speaker you use ;).

Bob K7JQ

I do believe you provided some insight there Bob.
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73  James K0UA

N2DTS

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #55 on: December 04, 2020, 02:27:58 PM »

In my case, I take the audio line out of all the receivers and feed them into an old Marantz audio amp that feeds a big old 3 way speaker and headphones.
I have 6 receivers or transceivers at the moment, 2 home brew, one kit, 2 small sdr rigs and the Flex.

I have heard people say some audio is hard to listen to, and suspect its some sort of distortion that most
bothers people. The early K3's come to mind. A lot of intermod I think it was. 
I thought the RX audio on the 7300 was good but it did not go below 200 Hz which can make it sound thin.
The Yaesu radios were better, even the KX2 and KX3 were better.
Because of the limit of lows, some suspect because of tones for 10 or 6 meter repeaters or something, there is a filter in the audio path, many cheap SDR radios sound much better.


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K9IUQ

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #56 on: December 04, 2020, 04:04:12 PM »

In my case, I take the audio line out of all the receivers and feed them into an old Marantz audio amp that feeds a big old 3 way speaker and headphones.


Marantz shows good taste, another hobby of mine is audiophile equipment, I like many kinds of music including Classical, Rock n Roll, Blues, Country (My baby left me and I 'm crying in my beer music) and most of Jazz and the Big Band era tunes. I take home theater equipment very seriously as I also take full advantage of streaming Video with Dolby encoded audio.

Which brings me to a question. The Flexradio 5000 I owned did NOT have an audio amp built into the radio. IOW you had to use external amplification like powered speakers or running the audio thru a HTS receiver. Has this changed with the newer Flexradios?? The BIG problem with this is RFI. Consumer audio equipment is not designed to run in high RF environments.

As a stereo/music nut I  know how important speakers selection can be, I also understand and know from experience that some Stereo/HTS Receivers are more pleasant to listen to than other brands -JUST like HAMRADIOS. Your Marantz reference brought that to my mind.

Music nuts like myself spend the most  $$$ on speakers and then on Receivers or Amplifiers. Speakers make the biggest difference is my reasoning but RX's need to be considered also.

Stan K9IUQ
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N2DTS

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #57 on: December 04, 2020, 05:01:29 PM »

Thats funny, as the 6400M has a built in speaker on the front that sounds as you would expect (poor) but has no speaker output, its headphones and line level audio, both adjustable for level.
Not that I would use what was in the radio unless it was very good, but even the mcHF hand held sdr rig has a speaker out and it sounds fantastic in a good speaker, along with the line level output.
Even the G90 sounds good hooked up to a good speaker and the agc turned off, the audio is quite good, the agc, not so much.

I would not think of using any rigs built in speaker except in the field maybe.
Might be ok on CW, you don't need much fidelity for that.

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K0UA

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #58 on: December 04, 2020, 07:15:02 PM »

Just as a note: you have complete control on the 7300 of your filter bandwidth with the Twin Passband Tuning, the two concentric knobs on the front panel.  You can cut the heck out of  frequency response of the rig by turning one or the other of them depending on which sideband you are on, or you can shift the whole thing one way or another by grasping them together and twisting them. Dont have to go into a menu or anything just start twisting. To retrun to default, just press the center knob in the nose.
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73  James K0UA

N2DTS

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Re: Listening fatigue IC 7300
« Reply #59 on: December 04, 2020, 08:07:58 PM »

Yes, that is very nice, but they limit what you can get to.
It would be nice if the filter was shown on the panadaptor and waterfall...
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