Just one, Ron:
Quit trying to set up your transmit audio by relying upon on-air contacts
with "friends" or worse, casual QSO partners.
I can predict with almost 100% certainty that you will just end up with
about as many opinions as the product of the number of mics and setups
times the number of people involved, plus a few more since some of the
people lie and others change their minds.
The point here is that only *you* know what you sound like and what you
expect to sound like on the radio and only you can be relied to be
completely honest with yourself. Even a close friend that knows your voice
may not be inclined to be totally honest in reporting his impression of how
Mic A sounds compared to Mic B. People are people and they all change from
day to day. And they might expect that you *want* to hear that expensive
Mic A really does sound better than junker Mic B.
I suggest that you use a second receiver - a good one with a clean audio
system - and a good set of headphones with it to monitor your transmitted
signal. Put a dummy antenna on both your transmitter and the monitor
receiver. Tune in your own signal very carefully using the widest SSB
filters you have. Be very careful not to overload the monitor receiver. You
should see an S7 to S9 signal on its meter at the most.
Now, you are prepared to audition *your* voice on various microphones
and/or equalization settings, etc. and to select what sounds to you either
(a) most like how you think your voice sounds or (b) what you would *like*
to sound like on the air.
If you haven't done this, I would expect that it will take you maybe 2
minutes to try all three mics and find which one comes closest to meeting
your goals. If none of them do, then it may be time to use a small mic
premp/equalizer to shape the mic output to suit you.
I have used the W2IHY EQ/Noise-Gate unit very successfully with several
microphones to tailor the sound. I presently am using the Behringer MX602A
Mixer/EQ unit as the main audio control center in the shack to handle all
transmit, receive, computer, and scope monitor audio as well as to drive a
power amp and speaker system. The flexibility of shaping your voice signal
has to be heard to be believed. And for $70, it is quite a buy. It works
equally well for shaping received audio so you can listen to other signals
and make them sound best to your ears.
This long harangue boils down to one fact: you can rarely believe what
other people tell you from on-air contacts about how your audio sounds.
They are hearing you through their own receivers and filters and their own
speakers and finally their own ears, and evaluating what they perceive
according to "their" standards of what you should sound like.
I gave up years ago asking "how does my audio sound?" unless I was looking
for a trouble report based upon my suspicion that something had gone wrong.
Hope this is of some help and not too discouraging . . .but the bottom line
is that I do not believe that there is any "best mic" for any radio. Like
most other things in life, "it depends."
72/73/oo, George W5YR - the Yellow Rose of Texas
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13qe
Amateur Radio W5YR, in the 56th year and it just keeps getting better!
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Ronald Hands wrote:
>
> There seems to have been a fair bit of discussion about microphones
> lately, which leads me to ask: is there any consensus on a particularly
> good desk mike for the Corsair II?
> I've had my Corsair for three or four years, but use it mainly for
> CW so I haven't bothered about microphones. However, I've recently had
> occasion to crank it up on SSB a bit more often and have been testing
> different microphones -- and growing more confused by the minute.
> Did a test the other night between a Shure 444 and a Drake hand
> mike. Everybody said the 444 was best. Then I did a test today with a
> friend who knows my voice. Used three mikes: the 444, the Drake and a
> TenTec 701 hand mike. The verdict was that the Drake was far superior,
> the 444 came second and the Ten Tec was a distant third.
> Obviously I need more choices. Any recommendations?
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