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Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

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Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#321

Post by ghaff »

CharlesW wrote: post #189
ghaff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people get wrapped around the axle of having the "right" $500 microphone whereas there are a ton of decent USB mics under $100 that will make a big difference. Also consider a good external webcam and doing something about lighting if you can. I realize that not everyone has a great physical environment to work with. But I'm struck by how many people who seemingly haven't made any real effort after a…

> I think a lot of people get wrapped around the axle of having the "right" $500 microphone whereas there are a ton of decent USB mics under $100 that will make a big difference. Yes! Even a Monoprice $20 dynamic mic is probably not going to be the weak point in your audio path. > Also consider a good external webcam and doing something about lighting if you can. Another great point. An Elgato Key Light Air is $130,…

I got one of those lights as well. The lighting in my office is pretty good and I could probably use one of my dual monitors as effectively a lightbox if I had to. But the Key Light makes it really easy to adjust frontal lighting so it's balanced with my track lights and natural light coming into the room. (Both of which I tend to ratchet down when I'm doing video for more even lighting.)

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#323

Post by ghaff »

josephg wrote: post #103
shoto_io wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have noticed with colleagues the insane improvements in video and audio after their amazon shopping sprees. At the same I haven’t updated my camera because I don’t have a nice room to work from and I feel a bit ashamed to show my tiny box with a high resolution... sounds weird, I know, but that’s how I feel

Do you have any recommendations for cameras? I've been using a macbook camera all year because all the cheapo logitech webcams on the market are clunky and look awful . What do you recommend?

Probably one of the higher end Logitechs. I have a 920 and would probably buy a Brio today if I needed one. As others have said, you can use digital cameras, phones, etc. But, while I do sometimes use my DSLR when I'm recording video, it's so much easier just to use a regular webcam even if the quality and isolation from the background isn't quite as good.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#324

Post by technofiend »

benkuhn wrote: post #13

It's also really easy to have high quality audio! The author recommends a "podcasting" microphone, but a $35 standalone headset mic[1] is almost as good and much easier to use. If you want to hear a comparison, I got kind of obsessed with this problem at one point and took some comparison recordings here[2]. (You need a standalone mic since most headsets, even really nice ones, have really bad mics because most heads…

The booming, echoy audio you get in most zoom calls from people sitting 4 feet from their microphone is a little aggravating. If you'd like to help your colleagues hear you better and want something subtler than a large microphone on a big boom arm then go for a lavalier microphone. See https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ME4--sennheiser-me-4... for one example, but even a $10 microphone from Microcenter, Amazon or Ali{baba,express} will do. What do you don't want is a microphone hanging off earphone adapters because you end up having to eat those to be heard. A lav mic in Zoom with both auto level adjustment and background noise suppression enabled gives a pretty pleasant experience.

If you don't have a dedicated microphone port then you may have to purchase an adapter because some input ports are wired tip ring ring sleeve (TRRS) and a microphone will just be tip ring sleeve (TRS).

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#325

Post by taeric »

benkuhn wrote: post #7
greenwich26 wrote: post #4

The audio quality of the inbuilt microphone on my laptop is much worse in Linux, than on Windows. I've tried some fixes on StackExchange but it doesn't really help. Has anyone encountered this? And if I buy an external microphone: how do I know it won't have the same problem? Has anyone had good experiences with microphones on Linux (specifically Ubuntu 20.10?) Is it some sort of driver/firmware problem? Nowadays I h…

Shot in the dark, but many of my Linux coworkers have a problem where their video chat software sets their mic volume/gain to 100%, which causes horrible sounding clipping. Check your mic gain settings and perhaps disable the automatic volume equalization in whatever video call software you're using.

This is killing me right now. :( And I'm not finding a clear "this disables it" setting.

For the record, I'm trying to use Google Meets and it seems to be the culprit in what is doing the "push it to 100%".

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#326

Post by KeepFlying »

brundolf wrote: post #319
Cd00d wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It baffles me that some people don't seem to care about their audio quality on calls. The most obnoxious are those who use speakers and you get echo on all your talking, and despite telling them, they still never bother to get a decent mic. I see comments along these lines here all the time, and I don't get it. I'm on zoom a majority of my day, and have maybe two colleagues that don't just use the laptop mic/speake…

If they're using external speakers, the only reason you're not hearing echo is because it's being software-cancelled. Different systems are better or worse at this software-cancelling; phones are good, Apple computers are good, otherwise YMMV.

I assume it also depends on if they are using the laptop speakers or some standalone ones. I'm guessing the cancelation tech is tuned for the onboard speakers

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#327

Post by ghaff »

brundolf wrote: post #319
Cd00d wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It baffles me that some people don't seem to care about their audio quality on calls. The most obnoxious are those who use speakers and you get echo on all your talking, and despite telling them, they still never bother to get a decent mic. I see comments along these lines here all the time, and I don't get it. I'm on zoom a majority of my day, and have maybe two colleagues that don't just use the laptop mic/speake…

If they're using external speakers, the only reason you're not hearing echo is because it's being software-cancelled. Different systems are better or worse at this software-cancelling; phones are good, Apple computers are good, otherwise YMMV.

Interesting. I normally use the external speakers on my iMac. I have verified with a number of different people that they're not getting echo.

Yet one sees other people utterly convinced that using external speakers is bad, bad, bad.

That may explain it.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#328

Post by kube-system »

acqq wrote: post #234
andrewzah wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is dismissive to say that natives "miss the meaning". They do not. Pimp has multiple usages, as do a lot of words. It is very easy in English to create new nouns/verbs or new usages of existing ones and happens all the time. As usual, the context is crucial for figuring out which usage it is.

> Pimp has multiple usages ...checking the American dictionary (descriptive, not prescriptive): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pimp noun: "a criminal who is associated with, usually exerts control over, and lives off the earnings of one or more prostitutes" "transitive verb: to make use of often dishonorably for one's own gain or benefit" "intransitive verb: to work as a pimp" And yes, I know that there's…

From the same source:

> We get a lot of hate mail from people who think slang doesn’t belong in the dictionary. Comments on our definition for OMG include “I am a high school English teacher and heard that this was added to the dictionary and hoped that I heard incorrectly.” and “The human race is heading somewhere very sad.” These people are barking up the wrong tree: We follow language and delight in tracking its changes.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/slang-and-the-...

and

> Some “new” words are already in the dictionary. New words like hashtag and selfie get a lot of attention, but many of the new words we add are new meanings of words that are already staples in our language: think of the recent meanings of mouse and cookie that have nothing to do with rodents or baked goods.

>What about words that don’t make it into the dictionary? They’re still real words!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/how-does-a-wor...

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#329

Post by stcredzero »

nvarsj wrote: post #229
benkuhn wrote: post #13

It's also really easy to have high quality audio! The author recommends a "podcasting" microphone, but a $35 standalone headset mic[1] is almost as good and much easier to use. If you want to hear a comparison, I got kind of obsessed with this problem at one point and took some comparison recordings here[2]. (You need a standalone mic since most headsets, even really nice ones, have really bad mics because most heads…

The ModMic is also excellent, and you can attach it to existing headphones [1]. I use this at home with my prized Sennheisers. It baffles me that some people don't seem to care about their audio quality on calls. The most obnoxious are those who use speakers and you get echo on all your talking, and despite telling them, they still never bother to get a decent mic. Another common offender are the Bose QC35s: they hav…

It baffles me that some people don't seem to care about their audio quality on calls.

Here's the thing about perception: A lot of it happens without your conscious knowledge.

One of the things about using Audacity as one's cheap studio software, is that you have to adjust for recording latency for multitrack. It's really easy to see how a part of perception is unconscious with the delay.

Almost no one is going to notice 5ms or below. At 20ms, many musicians are going to have this definite sense that something is off, but they can still hang. In between, it's a spectrum.

In order to introspect enough to notice things that are below conscious perception, some people require some training. This is also why audio snake oil works.

I use the wireless ModMic myself.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#330

Post by rectang »

ghaff wrote: post #315
rectang wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't affect your own voice! So asking, "do I sound different now" doesn't tell you anything! Refusing to wear headphones only spoils it for everybody else .

I am saying that I have tried this out by calling people and trying different things and they have told me that they can't tell the difference. This has included professional audio technicians recording a Zoom interview. I don't know why this sometimes seems to be a big deal and sometimes isn't, but that does seem to be the case.

Whenever you have a speaker and a microphone in the same room, there is always bleed from the speaker into the microphone. However, when those speakers are tiny little things pointed directly into your ear canals, the amount of bleed that makes it into the microphone is so small as to be completely negligible.

For regular in-room speakers, the amount of bleed depends on the relative placement of the speaker and microphone, the directionality of both, the volume of sound from the speaker and the sensitivity of the microphone. For most people on videoconferencing calls, the amount of bleed is going to be quite substantial.

The reason it's sometimes a big deal and sometimes not is because of echo cancellation software. But echo cancellation is a hard problem when you don't know the precise physical characteristics of the setup: the relative placement of the speakers and mic, the frequency response curves, and the amount of round trip latency. You have to attempt to detect what you think is an echo rather than a direct sound source, and then try to cancel it. That often fails.

But because it sometimes works, people who hate headphones take that as license to never wear headphones. And since it doesn't affect them, they often don't realize how much they are wrecking the experience for everyone else.

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