so ive been running SSB on 40m mostly and a few guys have told me my audio sounds kinda thin or processed. im running an IC-7300 with the stock mic which i know isnt great but it shouldnt sound that bad. i do have the TX bandwidth set pretty narrow because i read somewhere that 2.4kHz is good for contesting but maybe thats killing my audio quality for regular ragchewing?

i messed around with the bass and treble in the menu a bit but honestly there are so many parametric EQ settings in that radio i dont know where to start. also running the compression at like 4-5 which felt about right but maybe thats too much. anyone have a baseline setup they use for just normal conversational SSB that sounds natural without being too wide?

also curious if the mic gain interacts with the comp in a weird way because i swear when i turned the gain up to like 60 it sounded worse not better on the audio monitor

yeah the compression thing is where a lot of people go wrong. mic gain and compression level interact constantly and if you push the gain too high before the compressor you're basically feeding it a clipped signal before it even does its job. on my 7300 i run mic gain around 40-45 and comp at 3, and i've had way more people comment on clean audio than when i had it cranked up trying to maximize average power.

the TX bandwidth thing is real too. 2.4k is fine for contesting where you want to fit in a narrow slice and punch through, but for a relaxed ragchew bumping it to 2.8 or even 3.0 opens up a bit more of that midrange that makes speech sound natural instead of that telephone-through-a-tin-can thing. stock HM-207 mic isnt doing you any favors either, honestly a cheap headset with a decent element will be a noticeable improvement over that hand mic. the proximity effect alone changes everything depending on how far you hold it from your face

i had the same issue for like two months before someone on a net just bluntly told me i sounded like i was calling from 1987. turned out my TX monitor was deceiving me because the monitor in the 7300 doesnt reflect what the other end actually hears after processing, at least not exactly. ended up having a buddy on a nearby hill record my audio on his end and send me the file and wow it was eye opening. the EQ i thought was helping was actually making the sibilance really harsh. backed everything off to flat and just adjusted mic distance and it was night and day. sometimes the answer is just less stuff going on not more