The subject of this post could be :
The Orion, The microphones, a bunch of questions and a lot of interrogations
! :-)
I hope that after some of your replies, I'll be a lit more enlighted than
today !
Gentlemen, starts your brains... here we go :
I'm pretty sure a lot of us who are into phone SSB (ragchew or DXing) choose
the Orion amongst some other JA transceiver for it's capabilities of having
a great, hi-fi like (I prefer the term "enhanced SSB" than "Hi-Fi" !) audio
on transmit. Maximum bandwidth of 3900Hz for the TX filter is not very
common for all the other TX in the market today.
So Okay, now we have that beautiful Orion on our desktop... let's choose a
microphone !
1 - the TT handmike 701
2 - the TT desktop mike 706
3 - the Heil GM4 or GM5
4 - the Heil Studio One mic specially designed for the Orion ! Mmmh Mhhh :-(
5 - The Heil proset
6 - a Broadcast studio mic
7 - any good studio microphone of your choice with a FET or tube
preamplifier
8 - any microphone of your choice
Well, the TT handmike 701 I ordered with the Orion (just to have a working
radio out of the box...) is working, but this mike is cheap and like any
handmike, not very practical. I keep it as a backup mike !
The #706 is working too (this is the one I'm using for a month now) and the
audio could be qualified as "good".
For the Heil GM4 I owned a couple of weeks, I was cutting my head off with
it trying to get a real great full range audio with that mike, no way ! This
mike is working on some Kenwood (TS2000 and TS-950SDX) stuff these days with
great audio reports... but it was not the case on the Orion :-(
I did not own this Heil GM4 anymore, I gave it to someone who is really
happy with it !
About the Heil Studio One... I heard it at a friend's station and (like him)
I found that the audio was not really great, too much bass (cut the TX EQ
to -12dB at least), no real punch even with the mic gain set a "100". I
found the modulation very (too) confidential ! Really, it's my opinion as a
studio musician myself. Like someone stated on this reflector one day, it
seems impossible to overdrive the mic circuitry even at full scale. I agree.
This fellow ham said : don't buy the Studio One, keep your #706 running !
For the Heil proset, I do not have any experience with the Orion, I owned
one set and it was working with my Kenwood TS-870S. As I do not have any
Heil proset today, I can't judge but it seems that regarding some messages,
some had troubles too when it is connected to the Orion.
For the broadcast microphone of your choice and any other high quality
studio microphones, today I have no great experience with the Orion but...
what I know is that (again as a studio musician) I have acces to Behringer,
Rode, Neumann, Shure, Beyerdynamic, AKG, Brauner, Audio Technica...
microphones but the question is : WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO CONNECT IT TO THE
ORION ? VOX is used or a PTT switch must be done ?
A preamp (or tube preamp) MUST be used for these condenser microphones ! At
the output of the preamp, how can you put your signal (3 pins XLR balanced)
into the 4 pins Tentec mic jack (2 pins unbalanced) ? The iBox from W2IHY is
certainly THE solution but who is using it ?
I don't want to be boring, but I'd like to have (thru a personal e-mail
maybe ?) your opinion at how can I reach the great enhanced SSB sound, with
a studio mic and a great definition (and punch) in the modulated signal ?
------------------------------------------
I don't think everybody knows that underneath the Orion, 1 inch to the right
of the left foot and in the same axis than the USER2 button, there is a
small hole in the chassis, you'll find there a VR to set the gain of the mic
board. On my Orion, I set this VR to the max, mic gain to 85 (even 100
sometimes), SP to 3 with the 706 mic... a fellow "F" ham said the other
night : "Well, eric, your modulation is excellent but the audio is too
confidential, add more mic gain and it'll be okay !"
It is true that when I'm using the monitor function of the Orion (monitor
set at 100 and volume set at half scale - which is very high) I found myself
screaming into the microphone in order to have and to feel a little bit of
punch which is not very normal IMO - it was not so difficult to reach of
good sound with my FT-1000MP and MD-100 combination, so how can I get the
same from the Orion ? For info, I'm using high end Grado Labs headphones, 32
ohms impedance. www.gradolabs.com > headphones > SR 325. I have the same
results with the AKG K240 Monitor and Studio headphones !
-------------------------------------------
Oh my Gosh, is there anything wrong ? Is there any chance to have the dream
station I was dreaming at ?
I'm ready to invest some more money... but today again, I'm not sure of the
final result. That's why, your advices will be taken very seriously ! I need
your personal experiences you all ! :-)
I'll stay like this for today because I can wrote a book on that transceiver
if I will ! :-)
All the best, 73's, Eric from ON6CV ;-)
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