Where in the world is... HardDrive?

[Martian]

That's true if all you know how to do is turn screws. That's where some engineering comes in handy. Definitely not a 20-minute tuning procedure to fix that problem hence higher labor costs.

Even if you knew more than turning screws you cannot get rid of all distortion.
We mere humans to not posses that level of technology which will probably require exotic substances not known to man or violate the laws of nature to achieve.
It may be very low and inaudible but its there.
We are talking about CB radios that are built to a price based on antiquated designs.
I am surprised they are as good as they are, to be honest.
And, it's AM modulation!

I have not watched the video as yet, but what I can tell you without watching it is that there is some form of distortion in any radio at any time and it can be measured provided you have an instrument with sufficient resolution.

Ask Fine Tunes to measure it.
If he is honest as you say he is, he will do the test and show it.
That HP8924 he uses has the capability of doing such a test.

Now, I think we can all agree that the instrument (the 8924) even as old as it is and meant for use with legacy cellular networks can generate far superior signals to any CB radio out there. It's just better at it plain and simple. Better built and designed in every way to a CB radio. It's quite capable of measuring distortion in the audio.

It can't show 0% distortion. It's own resolution is +/-0.1%
Go look at the specifications right on the Keysight website right now.
Verify this for yourself.

This is why you get the responses you get.
You jump immediately to implausible or downright impossible and say he (Fine Tune) can do it.

The way you describe all of this makes me want to work with him because this SOB is going to be rich and win a Nobel or two and I want to be around that, at least for the hot girls

 

[Mustang 131]

Why beat the guy up? I've heard a few super techs over the years with terrible "hifi" radios. No handles mentioned...but its good for a laugh. But he's not claiming any of that "hifi" stuff.
No super swang, gay watts,or neon pink super turbo gain nobs. Hell he even got a anytone to sound ok.

 

[Martian]

Well, Rabbi said before that his (Fine Tune CBs) speciality was amplifiers anyway so I fail to see how he can do any of this that's outside of his speciality.

Willing to give the benefit of a doubt even if he is, by Rabbi's own admission speaking on his behalf, a specialist in Linears.

CRAIG_SEZ SAID:
One of them said flippin the switch,as in a power box??
Didnt think mark liked workin with linears..

That is his specialty.

rabbiporkchop, Oct 1, 2016

 

[543_Dallas]

Why beat the guy up? I've heard a few super techs over the years with terrible "hifi" radios. No handles mentioned...but its good for a laugh. But he's not claiming any of that "hifi" stuff.
No super swang, gay watts,or neon pink super turbo gain nobs. Hell he even got a anytone to sound ok.

People wouldn't be so hard on him if rabbiporkchop hadn't been trolling the internet cramming it down people's throats for years. I like that he does clean tunes but don't care for the smoke and mirrors he uses to sell it.

 

[Martian]

I think he does Fine Tunes more harm than good because of the trolling.
I likely would have never heard of him if it was not for the absolute insane claims made.

But people tell me I have to look at this guy... the incredible claims that make the engineers running the deep space network look like students of the video professor.

 

[Mustang 131]

He's got to compete with Billy Bob's CB and box car audio Shop. Give him some slack.What exactly is he doing wrong?

 

[Handy Andy]

Well, if anyone has crossed the line, this time it's not me.

Scot - over half the vid is based upon an assumption you gleaned from Mike doing a video on Hi Fi - and for you to take most of his video and claim it's wrong - can mean litigation if taken too far, there's the complex issues of intent, context and even infringement of rights - for he did all the work your are taking a chance of claiming.

Mike is not at all "Romper Room" quality - you may want to rethink your statement.

You are forgetting Envelope to Bandwidth approach those radios' that use the AM Regulation - including your Stryker radio you claim is the best in the world - Mike has a constitution of his own to stand by and for you to lay any claim of rights for YouTube license of "Copy" without his permission - that is your battle - do not bring it here.

Mike has done far more for the pursuit of excellence and quality you have yet to imagine.

I can't believe you've taken to here.

I wish you well - good luck - watch your back.

These are my final comments about this.

 

[Martian]

Ok, I had to go look... Handy Andy peaked my curiosity.

The video is damaged anyway. it seems to stop at points unless that was done intentionally. I didn't watch it all because it's just another rabbi hit piece.

However, some others may be interested to know this.
I just swept an 858 sideband chassis radio I have here.
It had the same distortion in the lows as the video did so it's probably a previously unknown attribute of the 858 chassis that went unnoticed, or something is wrong.
It's something to look at another day... but it is interesting that I have one doing the same thing.

That said, I doubt this is a fair use case. It looks like it qualifies as copyright infringement.
And I am not an attorney. But Mike should consult one and sue for infringement.

 

[Handy Andy]

To go on from that - the distortion you are hearing is an artifact - lack of headroom for the audio to be embedded into the RF signal. Maybe even the ability of the radio itself to process phase modulation moreso than envelope and carrier methods.

It's a bandwidth issue as well as a component selection problem. Something that can't be remedied by allowing for the audio signal to arrive unrestricted - but there is where the problem lies, because it's more of an FCC Rules issue. Not all radios are Type accepted to sound beautiful, but then I know of non-type accepted radios that leave a lot to be desired when it comes to beauty - it's in the eye of the beholder, and the ear of the listener.

I do not know a ton about radio and I learn something new everyday to add to my ability to help other understand this crazy phenomenon called Radio.

I come from an Audio Enthusiast than a Radio - so how these limitations came to be is where I pushed my own envelopes for discovery.

So to get back on track, many a good design got laid to waste as the blame for the effort of making a radio have good fidelity - but you simply can't obtain it readily by clipping a limiter and let the saturation distortion begin to let the fidelity sail out the window and what you're left with is some distorted sounds and if not done right - no intelligibility either.

So if you have a good envelope but the audio peaks at another part of the spectrum - you can try to "equalize" the effects to make yourself sound natural - you don't get that in a radio - you can only provide so much input level and capacitance to transfer the audio signal thru without it becoming a high-pass R/C filter which is negating the entire process your trying to accomplish. Or worse, too much of one portion of the spectrum and it washes out all the other spectral components (inflection and tonal qualities) that make you, sound like you, and instead you're muffled or distorted rattle-based audio because the mic element itself gave up trying to take it all in...threw it at the Mic amp and the mic amp is the messenger everyone is trying to kill...You can only provide so much to an amp - let alone get out of a microphone.

So that's the crux, I could go on, but a lot of this argument deals with the radios ability to add audio envelope without generating a phase issue - where now you not only have audio as an envelope - but the signal is also phasing with it, in both Audio and RF (think FM) - which can induce another type of distortion because a typical AM receiver detector can't utilize it.

Yes, people seem to hear distortion - may not be distortion - but the results of the processing of a signal that has both an AM and FM component to it - you can't discern one without inducing distortion from another.

What Hard Drive has taught me is to not give up to those "Foxes" that come along and try to steal your efforts away for someone else to benefit from.

I've learned a lot from listening to those roundtable discussions even thru Skip - for him to arrive in my radio is credence enough that he's doing something right. Doesn't mean it's right to do it, but it does work for his application. That's where I have to be careful - because I too am just as fortunate as he is in knowing something about audio - it just that I am not willing to donate my body to science over this process.

 

[rabbiporkchop]

If it's visible to the human eye on an oscilloscope it's way too much distortion for the human ear.
What we saw in that video was drastic amounts of distortion and yet he was trying to downplay the amount of distortion and that's precisely why he requires the Astatic 575m6 to cut off the low frequency response to conceal that distortion from any listeners. That's downright dishonest.
His exact words were "It's not That bad"
But it really is.

 

[Martian]

I need to see how much this radio I have has been hacked and slashed.

It's an interesting issue and I might be so inclined to see what its about.
It may just be the way it is, too.

 

[TM86]

Late to the party on this, but here goes.

he specifically mentions Distortion as being a good thing

If you would "Pay attention!" at about 6:27 you would hear him say that in certain situations harmonics can be a good thing. But in this case, with this microphone, definitely not a good thing.

If you're going to accuse a man of saying something, you should probably make sure he actually said it.

 

[rabbiporkchop]

Late to the party on this, but here goes.




If you would "Pay attention!" at about 6:27 you would hear him say that in certain situations harmonics can be a good thing. But in this case, with this microphone, definitely not a good thing.

If you're going to accuse a man of saying something, you should probably make sure he actually said it.

He blames the microphone which isn't connected to the radio. The distortion is produced by the radio itself. He does say "But in this case, with this microphone, definitely not a good thing". Very true, but
the customer paid him to remove the Distortion which he was unable to do.
That's part of a "tune".
The customer had four other radios that sounded great with the Palomar SL41 microphone and he told Mike he wanted High Fidelity audio.
High Fidelity isn't possible with any visible amount of distortion. The customer was told to purchase an Astatic 575M6 to remove the lower frequencies which the customer paid for in order to fool the customer into thinking he got his money's worth. I'm sure he's a great repair guy. Tunes are out of his league.

 

[TM86]

He blames the microphone which isn't connected to the radio. The distortion is produced by the radio itself. He does say "But in this case, with this microphone, definitely not a good thing". Very true, but
the customer paid him to remove the Distortion which he was unable to do.
That's part of a "tune".
The customer had four other radios that sounded great with the Palomar SL41 microphone and he told Mike he wanted High Fidelity audio.
High Fidelity isn't possible with any visible amount of distortion. The customer was told to purchase an Astatic 575M6 to remove the lower frequencies which the customer paid for in order to fool the customer into thinking he got his money's worth. I'm sure he's a great repair guy. Tunes are out of his league.

Here's the thing. I wasn't commenting on any of that. I just called you out for the Distortion of Mike's words in the video. You posted both, so it's pretty obvious you knew, or should have known, that he did not say what you claimed he said.

Claiming someone said something they did not say in order to damage their reputation could be legally actionable. I'm not a lawyer, but you may want to consult one.

 

[TheRealPorkchop]

What started as a "for fun" thread has turned into a pretty nasty can of worms, wow. I gotta get me one of them Fisher Price pieces, looks like it was available only at Toys R Us, thankfully they're coming back. That was funny, I don't care who you are.

I think the whole thing about Mike is taken out of context, it's the way you interpret what's being said. I think distortion is a great thing myself, especially when Eddie Van Halen is doing it, haha, not so much when it's in my radio. I don't think everything or anything is 100% pure and clean though, no matter what radio you're on. (Incoming!!!)

I do gotta toss this fire into the worm can... if we all paid attention and did like Tommy says, we'd all have clean and mean radios... hahaha.