Regular visitors to this site will know that one of my fascinations with 11m communications is with speakers, headphones and other DX-cessories which claim to facilitate good RX. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve been to too many heavy metal rock concerts in my time and have given the ear drums a bit of a hammering, but nowadays anything that claims to provide clean, crisp, hiss free audio not only grabs my attention ‘like a topless sunbaker would on an IOTA DXpedition’ but also my hard earned cash!

In the past, I’ve reviewed the Nes10 and noise eliminating speakers by BHi and offered some positive comments on their performance too, but about a month ago I picked up a second hand speaker on eHAM which is marketed under the quirky name: ‘Sounds Sweet Speaker’. I agree the name sounds a bit cheap and nasty — even a bit homosexual lol — but I’d read some favourable reviews on this unit in my net travels and hence been on the look out for one on any of the common sites which flog off pre-loved radio gear ever since.

Described as the “Ultimate SSB Speaker” by some 11m ops, the Sounds Sweet Speaker is a dense, solid, tongue and groove construction, with a tuned port and bass reflex speakers said to have been for optimised for radio communications. In the search for clearer and more intelligible sound than the speakers built in to radios can provide, many DXers have tried basic MP3 headphones, hi-fi or computer speakers. These options are always a compromise though because their tweeters are designed for higher frequencies than are present in the voice audio energy coming from your radio so it’s always a case of “keep looking”.

Rather than hook up the speaker to my main rig (TS2000) to see if the hype surrounding this unit was true, I rigged it up with an old Pearce Simpson Super Bengal MK2 base CB — which had been a bit susceptible to electrical interference in the past — by connecting the unit directly to the transceiver’s external speaker jack. Simple!

The results were immediately apparent with the Bengal test, with increased RX intelligibility which reproduced only the communications voice coming from SSB. In fact, they appeared to have the useful and satisfying bass information missing from some of the smaller communications and built-in radio speakers I have used in the past, but without the hiss and mud produced by speakers designed for stereo use. With skip pouring in from all 43 Division states and territories, fatiguing transistor thermal noise and vacuum tube hiss was eliminated and interestingly this was done without unnecessary equalizers and active stages.

Assembled and finished in 2 Division and weighing in at just under 6 kg, Sounds Sweet Speakers are obviously intended for base station use with their 12" high x 10" wide x 10" deep footprint and are quite a meaty construction compared to some other DSP style prototypes I have in the shack as well. This, together with the tuned port and specialised dual cone acoustic suspension driver, produce bass response to the lower end of human voice and no lower.

In conclusion, Sounds Sweet speakers can provide clearer, more natural sounding, and fatigue free audio than many other types of speakers. After testing the unit for a period of approximately 6 hours, it’s safe to say that they let you dig out the weak signals and really enjoy the strong ones with an added bass quality that adds tremendous enjoyment to good openings!

If you would like to purchase one of these hot speakers for the shack, the odd one pops up on eBay everynow and then. Or you can also buy one new at around $119US by clicking on the appropriate links at http://www.soundssweet.com/

Any comments on this speaker by existing owners are most welcome.

73 de Darren