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Re: [TenTec] Low headphone audio level

To: "Paul K." <hglent@frii.com>, Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment <tentec@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Low headphone audio level
From: Jim Brown <k9yc@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: k9yc@arrl.net, Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:15:15 -0700
List-post: <tentec@contesting.com">mailto:tentec@contesting.com>
On 3/13/2013 8:27 AM, Paul K. wrote:
Jim,
Thank you. You are the first one to post an explanation about the low level audioon my Orion I. I haven't seen many excellent postings like yours since Dr. Jerry Johnson left the reflector.

Thanks.

Now I am confused. Are you saying the series resistor on each leg of the 2 channel audio should not be there? There have been several suggestions to cut the valuein half. Are those recommendations reasonable?

Since I haven't followed this thread from the beginning, I don't know the original question, and I'm not sure what resistor you're talking about, nor do I know its value in ohms. Which is part of why I went into such detail with my response. :)

What I'm saying is that the output impedance of a power amplifier, even a small one, is quite low, usually much less than one ohm, but that circuit designers add some resistance in series with the output to protect the output chip from being shorted when someone plugs something into the jack. That resistor simply makes sure that the chip doesn't try to drive a short circuit.

In general, it's a bad idea to try to second-guess a good circuit designer unless you KNOW that what's there is wrong (the Pin One Problem is an example), and that what you want to change won't cause problems you either haven't considered or don't know enough about the circuit to be able to predict.

Bottom line -- if you can't crank the audio gain up enough that your headphones aren't loud enough, or it's simply a matter of matching loudness between speaker and headphones, I'd try different headphones before I would modify the rig.Most good headphones (Sony MDR7506, Yamaha CM500, and equivalent Sennheiser or AKG) are in the range of 200 ohms and have enough voltage sensitivity that they get plenty loud when plugged into any decent ham rig. The only reason we should need more than that is if we have severe hearing loss.

73, Jim K9YC

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