so ive been on HF for about two years now mostly doing SSB on 40 and 20 and i keep getting comments that my audio is either too bassy or sounds a bit muffled. running an IC-7300 into a Heil PR-40 which should honestly be more than enough to sound decent but something isnt clicking. ive messed with the bass/treble and the TX bandwidth settings in the radio a bit but i feel like im just poking around without really knowing what im doing.

talked to a guy on 14.225 last week who had absolutely pristine audio, like broadcast quality almost, and he said he just runs a stock mic into a Kenwood. so now im second guessing everything. is it the mic placement, the EQ settings, the compression, what? i know the 7300 has built in parametric EQ and i havent really touched that. and how much does mic technique actually matter on SSB vs just dialing in the radio settings? feel like theres a lot of opinions out there and not much actual consistent advice

the parametric EQ on the 7300 is actually really worth learning, most people just leave it default and wonder why they sound muddy. the thing is SSB doesnt need the low end you might think — rolling off below about 300hz cleans up a ton of boominess and on the other end you dont want to go much past 2700-2800hz for a typical voice, the sideband just gets splattered and it doesnt help readability anyway. for the PR-40 specifically youre probably getting too much proximity effect if youre talking close to it, that mic is designed for broadcast work and really wants you back 6-8 inches minimum. try that first honestly before touching anything in the radio.

compression is a big one too. a little ALC activity is fine but if youre pegging it constantly youre gonna sound terrible. the 7300 speech compressor can be useful but crank it too high and everything turns into mush. i keep mine around 5-6 and watch the ALC meter — if its buried dont touch it, just back off the mic gain instead. takes a while to dial in but once you find the sweet spot it stays there

honestly the guy on 14.225 with the stock mic might just have a really good voice for SSB, some people naturally sit in that 500-2500hz intelligibility range and sound great on any setup. dont read too much into that.

one thing nobody talks about enough is room acoustics, if youre in a hard room with lots of reflections your audio can sound weird even if the radio and mic are perfectly set up. also make sure youre not too close to the computer monitor or other noise sources, ive heard guys pick up fan noise and coil whine and not even realize it. get someone to give you an honest audio report on the air, like actually ask them to be critical not just say you sound fine, most people just say fine because they dont want to bother