I'm getting conflicting advice on SSB mic gain adjustment. My IC-7300 manual says to adjust for slight ALC indication, but several online sources suggest keeping ALC at zero. Currently running a Heil PR-40 with the gain at about 40% and seeing 2-3 bars of ALC on voice peaks.

Audio reports have been mixed - some say it sounds great, others mention it's a bit harsh. People commonly set mic gain too hot trying to squeeze every watt from their 100W rig due to fundamental misunderstanding of how SSB works.

What's the consensus on proper ALC indication for clean SSB? Should I back off the gain even with good audio reports?

Zero ALC is the way to go. Some rigs start to splatter with even very small ALC indication, likely due to poor quality control and improper bias voltages. Back that gain down until you see no ALC movement on voice peaks - you'll still get full 100W PEP.

I struggled with this same issue on my IC-7300. SSB mode with properly configured mic gain will only show about 30W average power while speaking. The harsh sound you're getting is likely from too much processing - try reducing both mic gain and any internal speech compression.

My output is full 100 watts PEP on SSB with average hovering around 35%, exactly where it should be with mic gain at only 5%. Don't chase the wattmeter - whatever it reads on CW carrier will be very close to peak power in SSB mode.