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Reviews For: Heil Sounds, Parametric Receive Audio System

Category: Receive Accessories

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Review Summary For : Heil Sounds, Parametric Receive Audio System
Reviews: 27MSRP: 499.99
Description:
The PRAS is a complete audio system which by passes the poor response of internal audio systems of amateur radio, shortwave, commercial and CB receivers. The PRAS allows the operator to improve signals using the unique mid parametric equalizer to dial the all important mid range speech articulation of frequencies from 400 to 4 kHz. The bass and treble, plus or minus 15 db controls set the outside frequency gates to 160 Hz and 6 kHz. The HPS-5 speaker system uses a Heil 5" woofer in a tuned cavity and a 3.5" titanium tweeter driven by the internal Heil amplifier which delivers 25 watts at .1% distortion. The PRAS is a major factor to help those with hearing impairments. Left and Right headphone amplifiers for balance or can be used for operator and logger. A line level record output is located on the front panel.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.heilsound.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
22.5273.9
W9BV Rating: 2022-12-10
Working well with improved audio clarity! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Previously, I had been routing the audio from my Icom IC-7610 to a computer I built with a good sound card via USB and listening mainly on good quality USB speakers (B&W MM-1) when I wasn’t using headphones plugged directly into the radio.
The main issue I faced was the limited ability to make adjustments to the audio other than volume and the slight delay in audio processing.

Having used other Heil products (mikes and a headset) and knowing some savvy hams who also used them I decided to try the PRAS EQ box and HPS-5 speaker combination.

The improvement in being able to quickly adjust the audio to my liking and to the conditions was apparent immediately. Also, when properly adjusted, the speaker clarity is far superior to what I had with my previous setup. I was impressed with how much clearer and seemingly stronger weaker stations sounded and how well and stable strong stations now sound.

The only issue I encountered was RFI becoming audible on transmit. I easily tracked down the source of the interference to the un-shielded cable I used between the radio and the PRAS EQ box. Several turns of the affected cable through a Mix 31 snap-on ferrite eliminated the problem by reducing the common mode current induced in the cable.

It’s only been a couple of days, but I am really enjoying the new clarity and presence of the audio I am now able to get from my station. The sound is less fatiguing and fuller, clearer and cleaner. I am better able to appreciate the care many hams take with their transmit audio.

A minor feature I’d like to see is a mute switch on the PRAS EQ for those moments when you need to take a phone call or talk to someone in person.

Another nice feature would be for the system to be able to handle audio in stereo with a pair of speakers and with headphones. This would allow for using features on radios such as mine which allow monitoring two frequencies/bands simultaneously. The system has one audio channel for the speaker and two separate channels for headphones requiring the use of a Y cable for stereo headphones.

Since adding the PRAS EQ and HPS-5 to my station I find myself looking forward even more to spending time in the shack. A highly recommended upgrade!
W7JKC Rating: 2022-11-09
Caveat Emptor Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just bought the PRAS and speaker from Heil during the B-stock sale. Everything fine until I tried to transmit. A complete RF nightmare. I'm not sure a Farraday Cage could help this unit out. I had to unplug from the radio, and power down both units. Even the speaker, unless completely shut down and unpowered, was making noise during transmit.

I bought this solely because of Bob Heil's reputation, but this is unusable for me. ALWAYS CHECK EHam FIRST!
KC0HOV Rating: 2022-07-26
$$GREEDY$$ VERY POOR QUALITY! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Met Bob at Joplin Hamfest would have expected a better product! Very poor RF isolation, Rf gets in this thing on several bands, I'm also running shielded Heil microphone cable, Squeals and Audio feedback, tried several things like ferrite chokes and moving it to different locations, lengths of cables ect. worked pretty good on a couple of lower bands with no feedback, guess they never quality tested above 40 meters? Just poor cheap construction and power supply. Why is the power switch on the back? I'm using a regular lower priced by about $400 good quality external speaker now sounds fine with absolutely zero feedback on any bands no matter how much output power I run. Left this thing sitting on the floor collecting dust.
EXTREMELY OVERPRICED!
SAVE YOU'RE MONEY!
KG5KS Rating: 2022-07-05
Great Unit Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought the Heil Sound Parametric unit with two HP5 Speakers. I had watched several videos before buying it and setup was easy. Heil Sound now sells power cords for these units to hook up to your main power supply bypassing the plug in AC power supplies.

If you have any problems or need to ask questions about any of their products, just email them. I have gotten responses personally from Dr. Bob too. I use several of their products and all seem to be of the HIGHEST QUALITY.
K4YAB Rating: 2022-04-19
Strong Hash noise from HPS-5 Power Supply Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My power supply supplied with my Heil Power Amplifier speaker HPS-5 is creating very strong hash noise on my FTDX-10 Receive. When HPS-5 p/s unplugged from 120vac the noise goes away. When I plug it back in it takes about 5 seconds or so and the noise comes back big time.
I have not tried to contact Heil yet. That will be next.
The Speaker has Excellent Audio.
N4FBM Rating: 2021-12-13
Great Shack Addition Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Firstly, this sound system is a great addition to the shack in that the receive audio equalizer allows a high level of audio control. The result is much improved sound quality. I can hear and understand weaker stations I may have missed without this sound system. Secondly, regarding the RFI issues some folks are having with this system, Bob Heil has talked extensively about ground loops during various Ham Nation broadcasts. When I set the system up, I had the RFI others were experiencing because I failed to pay attention and understand I had created multiple ground paths in the system. I removed the ground loop(s), problem solved.
K4ELO Rating: 2021-06-09
RFI problem resolved Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I like the Heil PRAS a lot. Properly adjusted, it does appear to reduce thunder storm noise without affecting sound quality on ssb. I also had the RFI problem but found that it disappeared when I set the input level to about 10 o'clock.

73, K4ELO
K6FVC Rating: 2021-06-08
Fixed the RFI Problem Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Like others, I had problems with amplified RFI that didn’t ‘seem’ to exist before. What I found through experimentation was that the HPS-5 and PRAS EQ amplified so well, I was hearing things that I couldn’t hear before. Prior to purchasing the HPS-5 and PREAS EQ, I was using popular high end speaker system used for computers. I did find that when I turned up the volume all the way up (which I never did) I could hear the same RFI.

The RFI that I had problems with was the distorted sound of my voice as I keyed down and talked into the mic.

I chased this problem and finally isolated it to my speaker out cable for my FTDX-3000. For the record I have good grounds to every piece of equipment in my shack and use ferrite cores on both ends of all cables. Additional ferrite cores and replacing my audio cables with XLR cables had minimal effect. Reflecting on my solar power project, I decided to make an RF filer using a FT-240-31 ferrite toroid wrapped with a 3 foot section of XLR cable. BAM! The stray RFI during transmitting was fixed!

Overall I like the HPS-5 and PRAS EQ as I am able to ‘tune’ audio for better clarity. Like many others, I purchased this system to augment my poor hearing.
G1MHU Rating: 2020-09-03
RFi Issues - fixed mine.. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
If you have the same RF Interference issues that I had with the Heil PRAS 1 amplifier, loud hum when running QRO Data modes and loud RF feedback when using SSB. I managed to reduce the noise by adding 25 0.01uF capacitors and 10 mix 31 ferrite beads. I used the scattergun approach of filtering all inputs and outputs to the I/O board as clip on ferrite filters did not reduce the interference.

PM me if you want a document with the details, email is correct on QRZ
WQ2H Rating: 2020-05-20
Excellent value and performer Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Excellent performer hands down when using the Pro7 with standard HC-7 element. I like the ability to dial in the mid-range to suit my taste. I also like the ability to easily switch from headphone to speaker audio or run them both simultaneously if needed. My only mod was to eliminate the AC-DC wall warts and run choked DC directly from my PS (but I usually do this anyway - I hate wall warts). If you've got RF in the audio path you probably have other issues. I would definitely recommend this to any amateur radio operator for clean audio manipulation and reproduction, and would re-buy the same if a replacement is necessary.