so ive been on HF for about 8 months now and every time i get a signal report the other guy says my audio is muddy or muffled or just kinda hard to copy. im running an IC-7300 which i know is a good radio so i dont think its the rig itself but maybe how ive got it set up. im using the stock hand mic that came with it and i just talk into it like i would a phone i guess. compression is on because i thought that helped with getting out further but maybe thats the problem? i honestly dont even know where to start with this. someone at the club said something about the TX bandwidth setting but i havent touched that yet. any ideas before i start randomly poking at menus

yeah the stock mic on the 7300 isnt terrible but it really depends on how close you're holding it and the room youre in. the compression thing is almost definitely contributing to the mud — if you crank it up too high it starts pumping and smearing everything together and you lose intelligibility even if the average power goes up. try dropping the TX comp down to like 4-6 dB range max and see if that clears things up first before messing with anything else. also the TX bandwidth on that radio defaults to something pretty wide i think, try narrowing it to 2.4 or 2.6k for normal SSB and that alone can help a lot on a busy band. mic gain is the other thing, most people run it way too hot and the ALC is just clipping the whole time. watch your ALC meter when you talk and try to keep it barely flickering.

honestly the hand mic vs a good headset mic makes a huge difference and nobody talks about that enough. i switched to a Heil headset probably two years ago and the reports got way better almost immediately just from the mic element being more consistent distance from my mouth. with a hand mic you're moving it around and the level changes constantly. also if you're in a room with hard floors and walls it kind of echos weirdly into the mic and that can muddy things up too. not saying go buy a $200 headset right now but maybe borrow one and see if your reports change, that'll at least tell you if the problem is the mic itself or the radio settings.