Adjusting Microphone Volume for Optimal Performance
by Parmod Gandhi
For the best performance it is important to not only control ambient noise but also the electronic noise generated by the sound card, microphone and the software.
Sound Cards
There are many sound cards on the market, but there are only a few that control electro-magnetic noise well. The pioneers in this technology are Ensoniq and Turtle Beach. Since Creative Labs bought out Ensoniq a year ago, new Creative Lab sound cards are also good. The sound cards that outperform others are Creative Ensoniq PCI. Sound Blaster 64 with PCI connector, Sound Blaster 128 PCI, Sound Blaster Live 256, Turtle Beach Montego and Turtle Beach Fiji and the newer cards from these companies.
Microphones
Various microphones use different technology to control ambient Noise. I particularly like advanced microphones from Andrea Electronics and Emkay and of course our own microphones the Buddy line, which are made from Andrea and Emkay microphone elements. Advanced microphones from Andrea Electronics are as follows:
| ANC-600 | Single Speaker Headset | Best Price/Performance microphone |
| ANC-650 | Dual Speaker Headset | Similar in construction to ANC-600 |
| ANC-700 | Single Speaker Headset | Newer design Speaker and Cosmetic changes |
| ANC-750 | Dual Speaker Headset | Similar in construction to ANC-700 |
| QW1000/ANC | Dual Speaker
Headset |
Active Noise
Reduction speakers. Similar in construction to ANC-600 |
| ANC-300 | Desktop/Handheld | This microphone is fine tuned by us. |
| Buddy 3565 | Single Speaker Headset | Speaker never makes contact with ear, more hygienic, but quality of speaker sound is not as good as ANC. |
Software
The last but not the least is the software. These are sound card drivers and components of Windows 98 and components of Dragon NaturallySpeaking that control how sound is carried from the source to destination (Dragon Software). It is difficult to know what characteristics to change and by what amount to get best performance. But as a general rule you want to reduce the noise and increase signal-to-noise ratio. It is possible to degrade the signal quality if you over adjust one of these. So for best performance you have to find a balance.
The procedure described on the next page is written for Buddy USB600 microphone, but you can use the same technique to adjust sound level and quality of any microphone. Proceed to Manually Adjusting Microphone Volume.
