so ive been on SSB for maybe 8 months now, mostly 40m and 20m, and i keep getting reports that my audio is either too bassy or sounds like im talking through a tin can. i upgraded from a Technician so the HF stuff is still kinda new to me and i dont really know where to start troubleshooting this. my rig is an IC-7300 and im using a Heil PR-40 which i thought was supposed to be like a gold standard mic for ham use but apparently im still doing something wrong.

ive messed with the mic gain and the compression settings but every time i think i have it dialed in someone on a net tells me something different. one guy said my audio was peaking badly, next contact said it was too low and he had to crank his AF gain. i honestly dont know if its the mic, the settings, the way im talking into it, or what. anyone dealt with this? also not sure if my ALC is doing something weird, the meter swings around a lot when i talk.

the ALC thing is probably your biggest clue right there. on the 7300 if your ALC is pinning on voice peaks you're almost certainly overdriving the mic input and that'll make your audio sound compressed and harsh on the other end. the mic gain on that radio is super sensitive with the PR-40 because that mic has a pretty hot output to begin with. try dropping your mic gain down to like 30-35% and see where your ALC sits. ideally you want it barely moving on average speech, maybe ticking up on loud consonants but not slamming to the top.

also check your TX monitor if you havent already, the 7300 has a built in one. it wont sound exactly like what the other station hears but it'll give you a rough idea. and keep the mic about a fist's width from your mouth, not right up on it. the PR-40 is a large diaphragm condenser and it picks up everything, breathing, room echo, all of it. a lot of guys use too much compression trying to fix gain issues and it just makes things worse.

yeah what he said about the ALC is spot on. i ran a PR-40 on a 7300 for two years and the mic gain sweet spot for that combo is way lower than you'd think. also one thing nobody mentions is the bass rolloff in the 7300 menu settings — theres a TX bandwidth and an TX bass/treble EQ buried in there and the defaults are not great for voice clarity on SSB. SSB really doesnt need a lot of low end, anything below like 300hz is mostly mud on the band anyway, cutting some of that actually makes you sound clearer and punches through QRM better too. takes some tweaking but its worth going through the menus properly once instead of guessing at it forever.