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Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

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Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#431

Post by eliseumds »

montroser wrote: post #21

This is fascinating! Makes me wonder about whether machine learning audio filters like Krisp[1] could actually take high quality audio and enhance it further to make you sound _even smarter_? Like as if you had the infamous NPR mic setup... This phenomenon does kind of seem obvious in retrospect. I was at a Socialhour[2] event recently where they had a few presentations happening simultaneously and you could bounce b…

I use Krisp on a daily basis from Brazil (a very noise country, terrible build quality) and it works incredibly well, better than most hardware-based solutions I've tried.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#433

Post by datagram »

jakebasile wrote: post #196

I have no evidence to back this up, but I strongly believe that video quality would have similar effects. I am a hobbyist photographer and began using my gear to improve my video quality on calls 6-8 months ago and people have continually commented on it, from executives to regular schmucks like me. We're a visual species and having a better view of the person you are talking with will help form connections. It doesn…

Conventional streaming wisdom is that audio quality matters more than video quality. That is, it's better to have bad video and good audio than good video and bad audio.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#434

Post by jakebasile »

crazygringo wrote: post #394
jakebasile wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it's definitely more than most people will need. I had the camera for photography and just decided to repurpose it. That said, a webcam can only do so much even with proper lightning and a clean background. They're never going to be as sharp, or as bright, as a nice fast lens on a quality camera.

> They're never going to be as sharp, or as bright, as a nice fast lens on a quality camera. If you've got decent lighting, that's not true. My Logitech C920 -- the most popular webcam of all time -- outputs a fully sharp 1080p. With normal front lighting, it handles 30 fps perfectly without visible noise, i.e. full brightness. There's zero quality difference versus using my DSLR. It's as sharp and as bright. Now sur…

No amount of lighting can make up for the difference in sensor size, quality, resolution let alone the aperture and quality optics of a photographic lens.

I'm sorry but you're just incorrect here. It might be minimal at Zoom resolution but it's absolutely there.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#435

Post by noodlesUK »

KeepFlying wrote: post #326
brundolf wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This depends. On my (dell) laptop, the mic is basically right between the two speakers, below the lip of the laptop. It’s possibly the worst placement you could come up with for a microphone, because it barely picks up voice, and picks up all the typing, desk noises and speaker echo in the world. But I suppose that’s not surprising from the company that thought that a webcam beneath the laptop display would be a good idea...

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#436

Post by hunter2_ »

heyparkerj wrote: post #365
ghaff wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The most common problem I see is not echo, but software audio ducking that happens as a result of using onboard speakers and mic. Some people have a hard time realizing that they're interrupting someone else because that other person's audio is getting ducked while the laptop prioritizes mic input over speaker output - with the intent to reduce echo.

Almost. The laptop of the person being interrupted is essentially muting its mic temporarily to avoid sending an echo of the interrupter. You could say it's prioritizing its speaker over its mic.

Basically, of all the ostensibly unmuted mics, only the one with the loudest human is truly unmuted.

It's closer to half-duplex than full-duplex. Full-duplex with no artifacts requires no echo cancellation which requires headphones.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#437

Post by Aeolun »

Cd00d wrote: post #301
nvarsj wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. 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…

Depends strongly on where your colleagues are. If they’re in a dedicated office at home the chances for background chatter are low.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#438

Post by nucleardog »

Drew_ wrote: post #257
MattGaiser wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It baffles me that some people don't seem to care about their audio quality on calls. 1. It is a bunch of extra work and expense for something I probably do not really want to be on. Easy audio communication is bound to induce more audio communication. 2. I have to maintain a bunch of infrastructure for it, manage configuration, and deal with all the wires. It is far from a free and easy improvement. 3. I rarely sp…

There are very good USB mics like the Blue Yeti for example. Plug and play with just one cable. You don't have to have a studio recording setup to get your voice to come through nicely.

I wouldn't get a Blue Yeti for voice calls. Besides being pricey, it's a condenser mic and a lot more sensitive and prone to picking up other sounds you probably don't want.

Something like the Audio-Technica AT2005 also supports USB plug and play, is half to two-thirds the price, and is a dynamic mic so will reject a lot more of the undesirable sound before it even gets into the computer.

It's easier to not capture undesirable sounds than it is to try and clean it all up after.

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#439

Post by pier25 »

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 V-Moda is great, but if you don't have headphones where it can be attached I recommend the $20 Sony ECMCS3 mic. It sounds fantastic for the price.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzGPyekZE7w

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-ECMCS3-Omnidirectional-Stereo-Mi...

Re: Higher quality audio makes people sound smarter

#440

Post by beiller »

I got a nice microphone but it's not directional and it picks up way too much ambient noise. Also I think it might echo (MacBook pro) so I just switched back to the internal microphone cause it seems to noise cancel correctly. Does anyone know a solution for that? I use MBP speakers for output.
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