"If you're looking for "Crisper" audio and less bass, the Astatic D104m6b would work well"
"If you're looking for more of a deeper audio with more bass, a Turner +3 mobile microphone will do the trick"
an 8 band graphic equalizer will accomplish the same thing with a single unamplified microphone. in the absence of equalization the first job of any microphone is to faithfully reproduce the original signal. the D104M6B and the Turner+3 fail to do that, as do most amplified microphones.
you did use the words "sound good" in your post. that's a fairly subjective phrase. preamplification is simply one of many "conditioniong methods" that can improve overall performance. you should become familiar with a long list of other options such as equalization, compression, limiting, downward expansion noise gating, impedance matching and rf/audio isolation.
pre-processing of the tx audio using these features will do a lot more to provide "good sound" and higher overall power output than adding ANY power mic. if you're looking for unrivaled tx audio performance for am & especially ssb then you can't help but look into all of this further.
in either event you may as well hold on to the RD104E. when you're ready to double - quadruple your investment in the tx audio end then you can make some meaningful improvements instead of wasting your money sampling every other power mic on the market.
StoneCrusher,
i don't know how "dx capable" your 148 is right now (or maybe you have another rig) but if you want to hear what i'm talking about tune in to 38lsb the next time the band is open into the southwest from pennsylvania and listen for NAO911. for the present (with few exceptions) i hear PA here almost daily.
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