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Reviews For: Elecraft KDSP2 for the K2 Transceiver

Category: Filters, Audio: (DSP and others)

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Review Summary For : Elecraft KDSP2 for the K2 Transceiver
Reviews: 4MSRP: 219.00
Description:
The Elecraft KDSP2 brings versatile, high-performance digital signal processing (DSP) technology to the K2 and K2/100 transceivers. The KDSP2 unit, which is fully integrated with the K2, plugs directly into the Control board. It's also very easy to assemble, with no surface mount components to install. The DSP IC and related parts are pre- installed on a small plug-in module.

The KDSP2 provides up to four user-configurable filters in each mode (CW/SSB/data), complementing the K2's variable-bandwidth crystal filter. CW filter settings include center frequency and bandwidth, with "hard" and "soft" filter algorithms and bandwidths as narrow as 50 Hz. SSB filters provide programmable low and high cutoff frequencies. Four levels of noise reduction are available in CW and SSB modes, while SSB mode includes an automatic notch filter. The KDSP2 is unique in that noise reduction and auto notch parameters can be modified to suit the operator.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.elecraft.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0043.5
G3RCE Rating: 2015-07-06
Too fiddly Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I built my K2 early 2006
I am primarily a cw op and I wish I had not bothered with the expensive KDSP2.
I should have gone for the KAF2 filter!
AD5HD Rating: 2015-07-04
Meh Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Built and installed in my K2, followed the directions, experimented with settings for some months, but intelligibility suffered even when using phones. Added a four band parametric EQ (MFJ) with an outboard speaker(s) (MFJ) and it helped but in the end not enough. After nearly a year I gave up, swapped the analog filter board back in, and installed a Timewave DSP-599zx using the external speaker output. Denoising is better but more importantly so is intelligibility making the EQ unnecessary.
KI4DGH Rating: 2006-03-20
Great Filter Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I built and installed the KDSP2 Filter into my K2 last year. Building the KDPS2 is really a misnomer since the IC Chip and SMD components are preinstalled at Elecraft. I think the filter sounds and works great. I will tell you that it took me a long while to figure it out. The menu options and the flexiblity of the KDSP2 are truly incredible. Four seperate filter levels for SSB, CW and RTTY. It took me a while to figure out what settings on the filters, denoiser, autonotch, denoiser Beta and decay settings as well as the SSB, CW, gain settings provided the best filtering with the proper gain to leave my audio sounding clear and uncluttered. In my humble opinion the flexibility and the complexity of this filter are a blessing and a curse. You can start out with the factory defaults but the filter shines when you take the time to experiment with the settings.
KI4DGH
KG0WX Rating: 2005-10-12
Best DSP for the best HF rig Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I built and installed the KDSP2 into K2 #4913 this
past saturday. Building was easy as the DSPx board
with all it's surface mount components came pre built.

Programming is easy once you get used to it. At the
beginning I was quite lost but after an evening or
two, I had put the manual away. I guess we could call
that a steep learning curve.

Performance is....well - it's an Elecraft. 'Nuff said?

I've owned several DSP equipped radios including a TS2000x,
a BHI Ltd. equipped FT-817 and a pair of FT-857's. The
overall capability of the KDSP2 is better than those but
the real plus is the fact that the KDSP2 can be tailored
to suit your needs. You get 4 adjustable bandpass filters
for each mode, 4 denoiser levels and you can tweak the
attack and decay on both the denoiser and the autonotch.

Using Spectrogram to view the bandpass, I discovered
that the skirt edges with the KDSP2 are even sharper
than the stock IF filters!

As if that wasn't enough, you can set the gain (in db) for
the denoiser and the autonotch. I set the autonotch gain
and the Afilter gain to +1.5db each. If you set these too
high, the speaker will crackle, even if the volume is
turned all the way down. Mine started to crackle on 40m ssb
with a s9+30 station and the Afilter gain set to 11.5db.

Also, the algorythyms and programming of the DSPx module
are OPEN SOURCE! You **really** want to tweak the DSP?
download the software and reprogram the DSP's software
from scratch. Wow.

Summary: As with most Elecraft products, if there is a
better product out there (rare), then it'll cost you a
wheel barrel of $$$ to get it and you'll miss the fun of
building it yourself!