I guess I'm the person who likes to tinker and experiment. I'm into good clean audio and your right, the Anytones are nice and clean. But when you can make them better...why not. When I first got the q6 it was nice. There are midfi/hifi mods for it that I found with the help of this forum and it sounds so much better after replacing the parts that were suggested. I may be at the limit of internal part upgrades so I'm just asking others.
Not worth the effort, the change is so minute its barely noticeable. This has been discussed before a lot. One of those recurring topics that happen every new wave of people. 4558's purpose is to take mic level audio to line level for the modulator section
Update on OP amp upgrades. So I did replace both op amps with two 4580's to replace the 4558's. If you plan on just running this radio right out of the box, this radio will sound just fine and no need to change anything. But if you like to experiment go for it. So with my set up I could never get the high pitched sounds clean enough or the sibilance clear sounding and not muddy for my ears anyway. This was the fix for that. The audio clarity from the 4558 to the 4580 is a big improvement for the clarity of the audio. As other people have mentioned, this change by itself doesn't do much for the audio if the operator is running just the radio, but I noticed the difference. With the other hifi mods done to this chassis this upgrade was the icing. Even with the stock mic attached it has a cleaner sibilance. With rack units and a nice microphone it's hard to beat. Have Fun experimenting!
I so appreciate your response and it sounds like you know a lot about electronic components. The 4580s did improve the audio quality. The op amps were the last thing replaced and normally I wouldn't consider even touching them. But it immensely improved the sibilance. Dummy load testing and another radio receiver with headphones made the results easy to hear. My thoughts are because this radio will only be operating on the CB band and not the ham frequencies, as long as I am not disturbing other conversations, experimenting is fair game. The goal with my tinkering is to not be in the bandwidth 300-3khz. I have changed out approximately 10 other components including the two op amps. The components help to widen the passband or widen the frequency response that is transmitted. I use a good voice microphone and multiple rack units to shape the audio before going into the radio. The end result is much wider than what you would normally hear on the AM band. music to my ears and so much easier to listen to on the other end. No one has told me they don't like a good sounding radio and that keeps me wanting more.That aside, If I can hear people using FT8 and sstv signals on that band, experimenting with audio is a drop in the bucket. It was a couple of dollars with of parts and the hot air wand made the rework a breeze. (First time soldering smt components.)
This is my first Q6. It is a good stable chassis from what I have heard and what I am experiencing. Hard to get good radios out of the box anymore. I may purchase another. Even the stock mic works well for the Q6, most radios that's the first thing to dispose of. Cheers.
OK got ya. I'd like to hear what that sounds like. Sadly I am over the pond, in France, so that would be skip and timing dependant.
I had some spare time and I decided to record a sample of the audio from my Q6. This was recorded through websdr.
...runna pile-up on 6m SSB