How to Get Improved Audio Quality in Your Video Conferences

Ensuring you have high-quality audio needs to be one of the main priorities of your conference room design. Even if you have a great message and stunning visuals, lousy sound can often hamper first impressions and collaboration. No one piece of video conferencing equipment impacts quality more than your microphones—the first link in your audio chain.

Do they offer accurate and clear speech reproduction? Are they prone to interference that can quickly affect intelligibility? Location, microphone models, and even how they connect to your boardroom will impact your audio quality. Let us guide you through the process by answering some common questions our clients throughout Oakland County, MI bring up in their conference room installations.

SEE MORE: How to Unleash Your Display’s Collaboration Potential

 

Are You Using the Right Microphone?<h3

 

How do you know which microphones are the right fit? Even the IT department might get lost once you start talking about impedance, directionality, and frequency response. The good news is knowing these specs won't matter as long as you make sure you're using models meant for video conferencing. How you plan on using them and your overall boardroom design will help you gauge which models are best.

Overall, there are a variety of choices including stand-mounted and user-worn microphones. Specialty microphones like tabletop mics or ceiling ones are usually the best option when it comes to traditional conference or meeting rooms. Tabletop mics are particularly good at picking up multiple users while minimizing reflected sound that can cause unwanted interference or feedback.

 

Where Are Your Microphones Located?

 

As you come up with the ideal placement for your microphones, you should have one goal in mind: maximizing speech clarity while reducing ambient sounds. Getting the sound source as close as possible to your microphone is the most reliable way to do this. Doing this is simple, but not particularly easy.

Over-saturating the room with microphones to make sure every speaker is close to one is a common mistake. Doing this will only lead to more noise and open up the risk that microphones will interfere with each other. A professional will understand the pick-up angles of your microphones so they don’t interfere with each other or end up too close to your loudspeakers.

 

How Are You Connecting to Your Boardroom?  

 

Consider how your microphones will connect to the rest of your video conferencing equipment. Often, clients end up buying microphones with connectors that aren’t compatible with the rest of their components. Microphones use a variety of cables, though for conference room applications, the most common are USB connectors, XLR connectors, mini-plugs, or RCA phono cables.

PCs are primarily compatible with USB connectors, so they’re what we would most recommend for your conference room. Low-impedance microphones—common in meeting or conferencing applications—also typically use XLR connectors. Even if your equipment is USB based, you can use XLR-to-USB adapters if needed in your conference room.

The best sound systems in the world can’t overcome a bad signal, which is why your microphones need to be your priority. Enhance your next meeting or training event with video conferencing equipment that can deliver clear, powerful sound.

Do you want to learn more about our video conferencing services? Our AV specialists help you find the ideal equipment and design for your office space. Reach out for a consultation by calling (248) 841-8500, chatting with us on the bottom right, or filling out our online contact form.