Jerry-
I have just sent additional information to TenTec which is essentially the
same as you report, and had contacted the factory yesterday with initial
information about it. I had not seen your email, but am glad to know that I
am not the only crackpot who has experienced this. I went back to the last
V1 beta release and as you, found the fuzziness ( I called it rasp) was
greatly reduced over the latest releases but as you said still there and
fatiguing. (I believe it was Bob Sherwood who reported that though the
Orion I produced excellent measurement results in his tests, he found it
inexplicably fatiguing to listen to for long periods) I then back to v2056
which at least in my case produces very clean cw audio, though it does have
some widely reported SSB shortcomings. As did you, with 2060b I find the cw
audio on strong signals to be pretty clean. It is the weak signals where
the rasp ( and it is not a slight one in my case) becomes noticeable and
fatiguing. It sounds to me as though some sort of noise/signal mixing is
going on. Tonight I got out a spectrum analyzer and looked at the audio
spectrum. With the v1365, the 1373b3 and 1375b5 and 2056 releases I found
the noise spectrum to cleanly follow the DSP filter shape, which sat nicely
above the noise floor outside the passband. With the 2060b release I found
the noise in the filter passband to be much closer to the out-of-passband
floor, and that floor to be filled with something that was clearly not white
noise. Interestingly enough the audio taken from the Orion accessory socket
sounded clean when run through a good audio amp and that it looked clean on
the spectrum analyzer. It's as though something further on in the audio
chain is causing the problem. Of course we two seem to be the only ones
experiencing this shortfall!
73
Bob W2WG
-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com]
On Behalf Of Jerry Volpe
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 6:08 PM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] New Orion I v2 Firmware version: 2.062a
The main issue that I have with this version (really a carry over issue
for every version since 2.x) is the slight (slight?) audio fuzziness I
hear, especially noticeable in headphones (I typically use a Heil
Proset). To my ears it is a distortion that produces hearing fatigue
rather quickly. It is most noticeable on weaker stations. Binaural
listening clearly moves this distortion to the left earpiece (higher
side). Binaural off centers the distortion in both earpieces, but it is
still there. AGC settings seem to effect the nature of this distortion
slightly but I haven't found an AGC setting that significantly reduces it.
I went back to version 1.3x firmware code to see if there was any
significant difference in this audio distortion.... and it is less but
still there.
My next step was to try different headsets. After six different models
it became clear that the one that was significantly less sensitive to
this distortion was my Kenwood HS-5 headsets that I had converted to
stereo (an easy thing to do). My other headsets were similar to the Heil
Proset in perceived audio distortion. Interestingly all of the other
headsets except the Kenwood HS-5 had fairly broad frequency response
ranges. Their input impedances varied but that only seemed to effect
volume and not sensitivity to distortion. The Kenwood HS-5 is rated at 8
ohm input with a frequency response of 150-4000 at -6dB, so they have a
noticeable roll off at the high end. Sadly, the Kenwood is the least
comfortable of the bunch and I can rarely wear them for more than an hour.
So after 18 months of Orion ownership I still find no firmware relief to
the woes that effect me the most.... how it sounds. Ten-Tec folks... are
you 'really' listening?
73,
Jerry, KG6TT
--
Ralph Jerald "Jerry" Volpe
Amateur Radio Operator KG6TT
788 Chestnut Drive
Fairfield, CA 94533
kg6tt@arrl.net
510 325-7724
707 399-8838 FAX
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