[TenTec] Headphones for ORION I?

[Rob Atkinson]

It's irrational to end an entire discussion because of some
out-of-line juvenile denigration of one ham's "audio" qualifications
when he is not here to defend himself.

I have never heard an Orion 1 except once years ago, so I have no
experience with evaluating its receive audio quality, but you can get
great audio from almost any old vacuum tube ham receiver if it has a
wide enough passband and you tap the detector with a 600 v. 0.1 uF cap
and feed that out to an external push pull amp driving a big speaker.

I don't really give a flip what degree Bob Heil has or lacks, or what
committees he is on or off.   There are a lot of dumb people with
Ph.D.s and a lot of dumb people on committees.   What matters is
making and selling gear that works as advertised at a reasonable
price.

I use a PR20 mic and have used it for several years from back when Bob
first started selling them.  It works FB, sounds great and is several
hundred dollars less than a RE20 and in on-air A/B tests, there is
almost no discernible difference between them.

>From my experience most hams who need a $500 "industry standard" in
their shack, have a need to satisfy other than good mic audio.

If Bob were making snake oil products I would think differently about
him but I have never owned or heard a mic of his that did not do what
it was supposed to do and the manufacturing quality seems quite high
to me.  It is certainly high enough for me and my ham shack, but more
important, I see Bob's mics gradually getting used in radio
broadcasting.  I think the reason for the slow adoption has more to do
with a cautious conservative industry that, when it comes to their
on-air sound, is risk averse.  That has nothing to do with Heil mic
quality but more to do with a few manufacturers who make very good
mics getting entrenched after decades of business.

By the way I have had the pleasure of meeting Bob Heil and working him
several times and he is a nice guy and a great ham and he has been
attending and showing his products and giving talks at NAB in Vegas
now for many years.

73

Rob
K5UJ