the audio is muffled & distorted on SSB signals.
Either it's the SDR or I don't have WINDOWS 10 audio settings correct,
Al,
I cannot think of anything in those settings to produce bad SSB sound.
My first thought is that you have configured HDSDR wrongly, maybe too narrow bandwidth.
I'd suggest setting HDSDR back to "factory settings" and check without changing anything to do with signal processing.
If it is still bad then suspect the Sewell, does it work with normal audio inputs?
73 Alan G4ZFQ