so ive been messing with my audio chain for the past few weeks trying to get cleaner SSB transmit and honestly some of this stuff online is wildly contradictory so figured id ask here where people actually know what theyre doing

my setup is an IC-7300 into a Heil PR-40 through a small outboard preamp i built, running into the rear mic jack. on receive people tell me i sound fine but occasionally someone will say im a bit boomy or that theres some low end rumble, which i suspect is either the preamp gain staging or maybe the mic placement since the PR-40 is pretty sensitive to proximity effect if youre close to it

the 7300 has the built in EQ and i've been playing with the tx monitor to try and dial things in but honestly monitoring yourself through the rig is kind of a pain because of the slight delay messing with your cadence when you talk. ive tried backing off the bass on the parametric EQ a bit and rolling off below maybe 150hz or so which seems to help but im not confident im doing it right without a proper way to see what im actually transmitting

anybody have a workflow for this that actually works? like do you just have a buddy on the other end give you reports or is there a better way to actually see your tx audio. i know some guys use a second receiver to monitor their own signal but that seems like a lot of setup just to get decent audio

the second receiver thing is actually way more useful than it sounds once you do it. i just run a cheap SDR dongle on a separate antenna a few feet away and use SDR# or HDSDR to watch my own waterfall and listen back. you can clearly see if youre clipping, see your bandwidth, hear exactly what youre putting out with maybe a half second delay which is much more tolerable than the rig's own monitor. took me an afternoon to set up and i havent second guessed my audio since

on the PR-40 specifically — yeah proximity effect is real with that mic, most people end up sitting further back than feels natural, like 8-10 inches. and honestly the 7300 parametric is decent enough that you dont really need an outboard preamp unless you have a specific reason. adding more gain stages usually adds more noise and more chances to overdrive something. id try removing the preamp and seeing if your reports change, might simplify things considerably

one thing that helped me a ton that nobody ever talks about is just asking for honest reports from people you actually trust rather than random contacts who just say "you're 59" no matter what. i have two or three guys i work regularly who will actually tell me if something sounds off, and we've done back and forth sessions where we tweak and report for half an hour. way more useful than any meter or software imo

also the low end rumble thing — check if your desk or whatever the mic is sitting on is vibrating. i had the same issue for months and it turned out my mic stand was picking up my mechanical keyboard through the desk. stuck some foam under the base and it went away completely. dumb fix but there it is