An interesting (and objective) article about computer headsets:
I ended up getting a Sennheiser SC 160 – it is amazing at blocking out background noise. Kids can be tearing through the office while I’m on a call and it pretty much blocks out all noise except my voice. Even when I type on my super clackety mechanical keyboard only inches way from the mouthpiece, very little of that gets through.
I did add a foam cover for the microphone to reduce wind noise from breathing.
I use my Bose QC2 headphones with an Antlion Modmic Business microphone attached to the side. Both connect to a Schiit Audio Fulla 3 USB DAC.
I think the audio quality is pretty good, but I still get self conscious that it’s picking up my breathing. I likely can fine tune this by moving the mic to a better location, but I haven’t yet so I still use mute when I don’t have anything to say. The Modmic also cannot cancel out the fans from 3U of servers sitting next to me if I have the servers on, so mute comes in handy still.
At my old job I had a Jabra headset with an in-line mute button that lit up a nice red LED when mute was enabled. That was super handy and I’d like to have a similar simple mute with an easy to see indicator, as then going on/coming off mute is a very quick action and I could easily stay in a conversation while muting myself if others were speaking.
Sounds like a good setup. Lately I’ve gotten into the practice of putting the mic boom below my mouth so I’m talking over it instead of into it – I think that is what the podcasting experts recommend for MIC placement. Also have a QC2 which I use mostly for music, but never got used to it yet for calls – something about not being to hear myself very well during calls or what is going on around me as I work from home with kids
Yeah, with the QC2 on in calls I can’t hear myself very well. I wish there was an easy way to provide some sidetone, maybe I’ll have to dig into pulseaudio and see…
What really surprised me is now much latency WiFi and Bluetooth can add. This person highly recommends all wired connections. This is consistent with advice I’ve heard, but this is the first time I’ve seen hard numbers.
The article also mentions that Zoom adds 500ms latency – I wonder much latency there is in Jitsi calls?
this looks a great change Cliff, well done, I have DSLR here and I am getting ideas to start putting that to good use, I need to buy a 16mm lens though but it could be a good expriment.
I’ve been using a Plantronics - Voyager 5200 headset with my phone for the last year and like it a lot. (Still using the Sennheiser SC 160 with computer).
This headset excels at blocking out background noise as it has a microphone array and DSP processing. In one case I was in a room where my daughter was playing the piano (very loud) and the person I was talking to could barely hear the piano.
Most headsets focus on blocking out background noise for you – this is important when working in a noisy environment and listening to music. However, I think a more important consideration when trying to communicate with someone else is to block out your background noise as headsets that do not do this tend to amplify background noise making it difficult for the other people on the call. This also greatly reduces your stress on a call if you don’t have to worry about your background noise leaking into the call.
The battery life is not the greatest (about 6 hours), probably due to the power required to do the DSP processing to cancel out background noise. However, this is more than adequate for my needs and it charges quickly.
It folds nicely and despite being rather large fits nicely in a pocket as it lays fairly flat.
Audio quality is good.
Overall, an excellent product and helps improve communication in our noisy world.
yeah this avoids the perceived embarrassment although the noise does dent your own thought process during the call ( maybe have noise cancelling enabled for playing audio ), although I have seen that people are more forgiving for external noises ( barking dogs etc. ) since pandemic
although the noise does dent your own thought process during the call ( maybe have noise cancelling enabled for playing audio ), although I have seen that people are more forgiving for external noises ( barking dogs etc. ) since pandemic