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Reviews For: MFJ-616 Speech Enhancer

Category: Audio Accessories for Transmitter & Receiver

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Review Summary For : MFJ-616 Speech Enhancer
Reviews: 23MSRP: 170.
Description:
Tailors the sound of your radio to your ears.
Product is in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00234.4
WD9IQN Rating: 2015-04-04
Fantastic !! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was looking for something to use as a receive audio equalizer and to drive two speakers on my corner desk. I don't have a hearing problem but after reading reviews on the MFJ-616 I decided to give it a try. I plugged it into the audio out on the back of my Kenwood external speaker. This thing works great. I thought my Kenwoods and Yaesu's sounded great before. They are high fidelity now! Worried about rf ? I have never had RF get into the unit even with my amp on. I am very impressed with the MFJ-616.
NJ2H Rating: 2013-12-29
Even better than I hoped for Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've been thinking about getting this for years (its about a fifteen year old product) and my XYL finally got it for me for Xmas. Well, I don't often speak in superlatives, but this thing really does help those of us with upper frequency hearing loss. The sound isn't very nice when set for full upper frequency boost and no bass, but you can sure understand it. My only gripe is that as an old design, it has RCA jacks for the input, so I had to head off to Radio Shack and get a phono plug and make a cable with a 1/8" plug on the other end to match up with my FT-950, but it was well worth it. Also annoyed that it doesn't come with a DC cable. You have to buy or make up one with a K connector, which is what I did. For the price, they could have included that or just use binding posts.
KD7S Rating: 2013-05-15
Surprisingly Effective Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Having a "serious to profound" hearing loss in both ears, understanding SSB signals, even with behind-the-ear hearing aids is often almost impossible. A very good friend was disposing of a Silent Key's equipment and offered me the MFJ-616. It took me a while to find the best settings for my particular hearing loss but now that it is "dialed in", it is like turning on a light bulb in a darkened room. If you are hearing impaired, the '616 will help. Simply said, it does what it is supposed to do.
KY4MRG Rating: 2012-06-02
Great product Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was reading about the mfj-616 and how it worked
found one and it is great, i use with a couple of
radio shack speakers. With my high hearing loss this is the perfect piece of equipment for my needs. I wish i had one of these a while ago. I will use a while and then update this. This is gonna be great for those hard to hear signals.
Mike
KC8HXO Rating: 2012-04-07
Great! Best MFJ item I have owned! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Yes, I have hearing loss. One ear really bad. Have been playing with many filtering options for received audio over the last few weeks. Here is the current set up, and it's a KILLER: IC-765 with stock filtering into MFJ-616 into Autek QF-1A into Yaesu SP-102 speaker with the NHI NEDSP-1032 board installed. HOLY COW, this rocks. Try it.
HAMDUDE Rating: 2011-06-16
performs great Time Owned: more than 12 months.
On my second unit, don't remember why i sold the first one, definetly a mistake. losing hearing at 51 years old, found another unit and picked it up. after installing and adjusting for a few hours during numerous contacts, found the right settings. by turning the unit on and off during qso's, you can really see the effectivness of the 616. as others have said, "where is the 15 cent on/off light?" on the quality of mfj: i have had numerous items and have only had 1 failure. i know you should not have to take apart a new unit and check solder joints, tighten bolts etc, but i believe thats a good practice for anything you buy new outside of a radio unit, i reccomend this item.
W8RMA Rating: 2011-03-27
Saying "QRZ?" too often? GET ONE! Time Owned: N.A.
About 10 years ago an ear doctor told me I was losing my high frequency hearing. Nothing serious, but as I grew older he said it would probably get worse.

So because I didn't need much of an excuse to buy any kind of gismo that would plug into a radio, I bought the MFJ-616.

I hooked it up but didn't see much of a difference with it. Oh, it made the highs higher and the lows lower and at times it could knock down certain types of atmospheric noise, but it certainly didn't make anything more intelligible.

I was going to sell it, but all the reviews raved about it, saying it returned the fun of radio to those "old guys" who couldn't hear good any more. Now I are one!

Over the past several months I noticed that I was having more and more trouble hearing a lot of people on the radio. (I attributed it no-code licensing. I figured all these new no-code hams were using their old CB power mics. HI HI)

Finally I considered the remote possibility that maybe the problem was with my hearing. I doubted it since I'm only just shy of 69 years old , and I remembered that MFJ-616 back in the corner of a closet.

So I dug it out, dusted it off and pluged it in and started turning the knobs.

I damned near fell out of my chair!! I don't have the writing skills to properly describe the impact that little box has had on my radio enjoyment, so let me just say the following:

If signals are sounding flat and muffled and you are saying "QRZ? Please repeat your call" more and more, if you think that the letters B, C, D, E, G, P, V and Z should be outlawed from ham radio call signs, it may be time to consider an MFJ-616.

SWMAN Rating: 2010-04-26
Perfect/great now! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just the other day I gave the 616 a 2 because of the bad RF problem I was having. Come to find out from the good elmers here on eham I traced out the problem to the power supply. I was using the same supply for radio and the 616 which was causing a ground loop and feedback. I connected to a separate supply and wow, no more RF at all. Now I can give it a 5 plus thanks to the good elmers here. 73 Jim
N4GW Rating: 2010-03-28
Pleasantly surprised Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was very pleased. I picked up one of these up off of eBay for a good price. I was skeptical because MFJ sometime has quality issues. I dont have any hearing loss but have always been disappointed in the sound quality coming out of todays radios and speakers. I finally found a speaker I really like. The new Palstar SP30H. i also did a review on this speaker here on eham. Even with this speaker, I though things could work better

My MFJ 616 arrived just in time for the CQ WPX contest this past weekend. The unit is basically an audio equalizer that works only on the voice range of frequencies, and it actually works really well. This may be one of the best kept secrets in HAM radio. You can adjust the audio to your liking and really pull out what the other person is saying. It really helped in the contest for those whose audio is not transmitted at its best.

If you get one of these, you will not be disappointed. It may even make bad speakers sound good, but it would be best to start with a really great speaker too
K5OQ Rating: 2005-04-30
Outstanding - With A Serious Limitation Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
MFJ-616

Outstanding - With One Serious Limitation

Recently, I had a sudden and nearly-complete loss of hearing in one ear. All that I could hear in the affected ear were a few high frequencies at high amplitude. The prevalence of wide-band transmitter audio caused my bad ear to vibrate like a broken speaker cone when subjected to moderate levels of high-frequency audio.

The MFJ-616 Speech Intelligibility Enhancer now allows me to listen to all types of transmitted audio with adjustment for a specific station's audio - on my IC-756 ProIII. The MFJ box allows tailoring of four broad ranges of the audio spectrum, either boost or cut. By cutting the 2400KHz range, the eardrum rattling sound is abated. Only one station that I speak with often has such piercing highs that I must use all of the 2400Hz cut (about 20db) to reduce the rattling in my eardrum.

The MFJ input in mono, but there are two separate audio amps, so you get a pseudo-stereo effect, and there is a Balance control to shift more audio to one speaker or headphone than the other. Why there is no red LED for ON/OFF is a puzzling oversight.

MFJ points out that only 4% of speech intelligibility is contained below 500Hz. Even when both ears were nearly perfect, I did not enjoy listening to most of the "broadband" audio signals on the air, with the emphasis on low-end. Now, I cut the audio below about 300Hz on most broadband audio signals - and enjoy better intelligibility. The middle ranges can also be cut or boosted, depending on particular abnormal frequency responses in your ears.

For now, I am using two AES PCL-1 speakers, an old Heil Pro boom headset, and a variety of stereo headphones. I will experiment with different speakers and perhaps one of the new Heil boom headsets.

The MFJ-616 has one glaring weakness. It is designed to correct for symmetrical loss of frequency response in both ears. Although it has two audio amps and a Balance control, this does nothing to help where one ear has a profound difference in frequency response from the other. What is needed is a dual-channel design with separate filters for each ear. For example, if I cut the 2400Hz response by about 20db in deference to my 'tin' ear, I am also robbing the good ear of the higher frequency response.

I am giving some thought to buying a second MFJ-616 and use one for each ear, with one speaker from each unit and a composite stereo headset plug to tap right and left audio from the two units. It would be nice if MFJ would produce a new model with two audio channels and separate audio bandpass tailoring for the right and left ear. A lot of people with asymmetrical hearing would probably pay the price for such a unit. Why buy a $3,000 to $10,000 rig if you can't hear the output clearly? What's another $300 to hear clearly! Say again your prefix, please. Dick K5OQ