so ive been on SSB for about a year now, mostly on 40m and 20m, and i keep getting reports that my audio is kind of harsh or "processed sounding" which bugs me because i spent a fair amount on the radio (IC-7300 for what its worth). I'm running the stock mic, the HM-219 or whatever it ships with, and i havent really touched any of the TX audio settings in the menus other than bumping the mic gain up a little because someone told me to.

a guy last week on a ragchew said my lows were missing and my highs were peaking — he literally said i sounded like i was on a CB radio which, ouch. so i guess my question is what settings are people actually running on the 7300 for decent SSB audio, and is the stock mic just not cutting it or is this a settings thing. im not trying to sound like a broadcast station just want to be intelligible and not annoy people

the stock mic on the 7300 is honestly fine but you really need to dial back the mic gain and let the TX bandwidth do some work. most people crank the gain and then the speech processor kicks in too hard and yeah it sounds like garbage. try setting mic gain around 50-60% and make sure the speech processor is either off or set conservatively — like compressor level no higher than 3 or 4 to start. the TX bandwidth setting in the menu is where a lot of people mess up too, default is kind of narrow, try widening it slightly to maybe 2400-2700hz and see if that helps the naturalness of the audio.

also the bass rolloff on SSB is actually a feature not a bug — you dont want a lot of low frequency energy because it doesnt carry well and just muddies things up, but you want some warmth in the mids around 800-1500hz range. if someone said your lows were missing they probably just meant your voice sounded thin, which usually points to mic positioning or the eq curve being off. try talking across the mic not straight into it and see if that changes anything.

yeah the HM-219 is pretty mediocre tbh, i swapped mine out for an Heil PR-781 and the difference was noticeable right away. that said i spent probably two weekends messing with the menus before i touched the mic so definitely rule out settings first like the other guy said. one thing i'll add is get someone you trust on the other end while you tweak, doing it blind by yourself is really frustrating and you'll just go in circles. find a local buddy or somebody on a club net who will give you honest feedback and just go through it systematically.