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In Reply to: RE: I guess I'm confused by your response posted by E-Stat on April 16, 2016 at 14:36:52
I am referring to the audio quality which is also influenced by the IF as well as the audio output stage..I think it comes down to high quality analog vs high quality digital as the overall picture when it comes to RF.
Funny story.In 1992 I had purchased a modern rig was a Yaseu FT990.I got a good deal on it because I knew the Yaseu rep and it's a nice rig which I still have but don't use anymore.
The 10 meter band was wide open in the early 90s because we were in the peak of the sunspot cycle.Anyway I was talking to an older gentleman in Texas and this was on 10M upper sideband and he had the most beautiful sounding signals and audio I've ever heard on 10m and we talked for about 67 minutes.In that time I asked three times, what rig he was using in the course of about 40 minutes. He finally said to me you know,you have asked me three times about the rig I'm running and I'm embarrassed to tell you. It's a 1962 Collins KWM2.That's when it occurred to me that he was running a tubed unit and I always knew how well tubes performed in audio and RF amplifiers but I didn't think they could compete with the modern digital transceivers of the day with the fancy processing and that's when I learned otherwise.Of course the Collins was very special and a very expensive rig even by 1960 dollars which I think cost as much as some cars back then.In the end I knew he wasn't embarrassed in the least.He didn't want to brag about what he had because it destroyed my Yaseu from A to Z.
After that I bought me my first S line.
A friend you get for nothing,an enemy has to be bought
Edits: 04/16/16 04/16/16Follow Ups:
I think it comes high quality analog vs high quality digital as the overall picture when it comes to RF.
Hmmm. We don't hear radio frequencies. My experience is that typical digital falls short of analog at the very top of the audible spectrum lacking in overtones and the natural sense of space. OTOH, I find that high resolution digital is a win/win situation. Midrange response, however, is very different. I commented on that topic today here and a subsequent response.
I'm not a HAM, but aren't we talking about voice quality in the midrange? As for me, I don't find any limitations at that section of the bandwidth with digital. Much less any notions of "noise". Most often, digital is "overly quiet" and lacks top end air of unamplified music.
RW
If you heard it set up live,you would hear the difference in depth.realism,and clarity even at the 3200hz range..I could hear some of it in the youtube video but if you heard that setup in a QSO,especially one with vacuum tubes,I would be mighty surprised if you didn't hear the difference between it and the Icom.The AM Ham guys are just like tube audiophiles in that sense because we love that natural realism where you are sitting in the shack and you can hear someone's dog breathing that's in the room with the guy you are talking to about 700 miles away. On sideband tho,the Collins is the only radio I've heard that can come reasonably close to AM quality on the transmit side.Remember,the AM we use is not like what the radio stations transmit because we don't compress our audio as a radio station would.
A friend you get for nothing,an enemy has to be bought
If you enjoy playing around listening and maybe talking with other hams non-fatiguing audio is rather nice when relying upon reflections from the ionosphere.
What digital enables has dramatic benefits for getting rid of interference, but I doubt little thought is given to it's effect on audio quality. For me, this holds true even for Copying Morse Code.
Tinny Bob
Never assume anything I post is accurate.
Hi Bob
Glad you chimed in.You are absolutely correct about how digital formats can be advantageous in that we don't have to deal with noise from static crashes and changes in propagation. I worked CW more in last year than I have in the 7 years prior to that. I'm seeing a lot more activity now than in years past.
A friend you get for nothing,an enemy has to be bought
Edits: 04/17/16
Greetings once again para Sactown, Michael. Seems like world band receiver audio response changed in the late 80s. Until then, audio was fairly hi-fi in quality, especially when fed to audio amps. Afterwards, audio quality became more mid-centric, with relatively little highs or lows in the mix. Frog 7 has hi-fi audio, but ICOM R-75 is more mid-centric. Even after stereoadvisors' Luis modded unit for better fidelity in synchronous AM mode (in comparison, ICOM R-71A has more hi-fi'ish-quality audio from modded audio amp). BTW, would love to have your relatively quiet propogation background. There's always a blanket of digital hash across the spectrum from nearby Sactown County Communications Centre. 73s para Sactown
BTW, would love to have your relatively quiet propogation background.
QST published an article back in 2005 or so how all noise from digital data such as computers,plasma TVs,cell phones,etc,were ruining HF communications and then they wanted to put broadband over the power lines and we so happy after lobbying FCC to stop it.
A friend you get for nothing,an enemy has to be bought
"We don't hear radio frequencies. My experience is that typical digital falls short of analog at the very top of the audible spectrum lacking in overtones and the natural sense of space."Don't forget that we are listening to an analog format when we listen to AM/FM and SSB. Technically that Icom radio is an analog radio that processes its functions with a digital process.There are digital formats for radio that transmit the typical 1s and 0s and then it's decoded back to analog so we can hear it and the advantage to that is the signal has a much better chance of making it to the receiving end without getting broken up. As hams we can transmit in digital formats in certain areas of different bands but I have to review the band plans..
A friend you get for nothing,an enemy has to be bought
Edits: 04/16/16
Don't forget that we are listening to an analog format when we listen to AM/FM and SSB.
Absolutely! Which requires an analog output stage and loudspeaker. The Collins one is tube based while the Icom is most likely op amp based.
Lose the op amps!
I continue to observe you are comparing two different things when you first state that a digitally based receiver cannot match the sound quality of an analog one. You could use a triode based output stage for the digitally based radio and most likely, get similar results.
The Collins one is tube based while the Icom is most likely op amp based.
The Collins in the video of course is 100% solid state but has mechanical filters that Collins is famous for..The premises of my OP was to compare older vintage transceivers and radios to newer technology and in this case as we deal with analog radio formats,multiple use of microprocessors can be a detriment because of the noise it generates.Here is inside of the KWM380 so it also had it share of modern technology for the late 70s and early 80s.
A friend you get for nothing,an enemy has to be bought
Later Gator,
Dave
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