so ive been on HF for about two years now mostly doing FT8 and just recently started getting into SSB phone and honestly the audio coming out of my rig sounds way better than what people are telling me they hear on the other end. running an IC-7300 with the stock mic and i know i know everyone says ditch the stock mic but even before i do that i want to make sure im not doing something dumb with the settings first.

the main complaints ive been getting are that im either too bassy or sometimes people say im cutting out on peaks. ive got the compression on because i thought that helped with readability but maybe thats the issue. also my RF power is at 100w into a dipole, ALC looks fine to me but i honestly dont fully understand what the ALC meter is actually telling me when it starts bouncing around a lot. any thoughts from people who have actually dialed this stuff in would be appreciated, not looking for a whole tutorial just some pointers on where to start

the ALC thing is probably your culprit honestly. if its bouncing around heavily that usually means the mic gain is too high and youre driving the TX chain harder than it wants to be driven, which causes exactly the kind of peak clipping you're describing. on the 7300 i'd back the mic gain down until the ALC is just barely moving on normal speech peaks, like occasional flickers not constant deflection. the manual has a suggested procedure but i found setting it by ear with a friend on the other end works better anyway.

compression can help but it has to be set right — too much and it just makes everything sound pumpy and fatiguing to listen to, which is almost worse than no compression at all. i run maybe 4-5dB on mine for casual contacts and bump it up a bit if conditions are rough. also the bass thing is real with the stock mic, the proximity effect if youre talking too close will make you sound muddy. try staying a few inches back and talking across the mic not directly into it.

yeah what he said about mic gain, thats the first thing i check whenever audio sounds off. i spent like three weeks thinking my radio had a problem and it was just mic gain set way too high from the factory reset i had done.

one other thing — are you on USB or LSB? obvious question but ive seen people accidentally be on the wrong sideband for the band they're on and not realize it because it kind of still sounds like speech just weird. 40m and below is LSB, 20m and up is USB, just making sure since you said youre new to phone.