In article , "Bob Spooner" wrote:
"W4PHS" wrote in message
m...
No doubt there are 1000+ opinions on this, but what are some really clear
external speakers for use
with SSB phone signals through my Yaesu FT-897? I'm 61 years old with
high frequency hearing
impairment due to 40 years of sitting by computers, and I need all the
help I can get in
understanding voice over static.

I have seen several enthusiastic recommendations for the Peavey Impulse II
mini monitor which is
fairly small and costs about $100. Does anyone have any experience with
it?

Icom and Yaesu both make multi-hundred dollar external speakers that have
gotten mixed reviews.

The speaker you mentioned will handle up to 200 W peak. That's about 2
orders of magnitude above what most transceivers put out. I'd be surprised
if you could hear much of anything through it without a good external audio
amplifier. Most speakers like that sacrifice efficiency to get wide
frequency response - they respond way beyond the frequency content of ham
radio signals, even those of the hi fi AMers. (Think broadband noise.)

There's an amplifier/speaker combination advertized in QST (I think) that
you may find meets your needs. I don't recall the name of the product or
company, but I'll try to locate it if someone else doesn't chime in.


Why do people think big speakers need more power.
PA speakers are very efficient. It has NOTHING to do
with power in, and ALL to do with SPL with 1 watt in or sensitivity.

For a person with bad hearing, a horn type of the Peavey might improve
the sound. Probably will also do more damage. You NEVER want to use
a PA speaker for nearfield listening normally. You need
to be at least 10 feet back from the horn.

I would recommend using a nearfield monitor with a adjustable
response filtering to make the best listenable sound for bad ears.
You can also use headphones.

greg
N6GS