Hmmh, I couldn't care less about webcams. I'm not that pretty and not all that eager to share the interior of my dwelling. I do however care about sound quality. With my accent and mumbling I need all the help I can get. Others reported that the camera in their phone beats most webcams, but what about the microphone(-array)? The sound quality of phablets hasn't quite won me over. Is there anything better available, short of equipment for professional musicians?
I'm an amateur musician with a USB audio interface, several hundred dollars worth of microphones (though for office work, it's just the Shure SM27 condenser), and wired set of good headphones. And it is glorious. Until everyone got used to it, I got consistent compliments on the sound quality. You'll sound like a radio DJ. Because everything is wired, latency is minimal and a lot less of "okay, go head. No, go ahead..."
Now, that's a lot of money and fiddling. Bang-for-the-buck IMO is the already-mentioned Blue Yeti, along with a wired set of headphones (anything, just wired, and not coming out of the speakers to take the load off the DSP feedback cancelling). So, prolly $150 total? Point being, if you use just a wired mic and headphones of any quality, you're loads ahead in sound quality of those using the built-in mic and speakers on their laptop (or worse, their phone).
I was under the impression that dynamic microphones are much more suitable for non-studio settings, where echoes and other noises happen, as well as for regular speech, not music (and that they are actually used on radio stations). And XLR dynamic ones can be connected to a computer even with just an XLR-to-TRRS cable, not requiring phantom power. Or a proper audio interface if one wishes to, not something built into a microphone. Do you have any experience with those, and/or reasons to prefer condenser microphones for speech?
You need a mic preamp somewhere in the signal chain.
Sadly, many manufacturers have been pushing "USB mics", which bundle the preamp and an analog->digital converter into the mic body, and they've been very successful at marketing/selling these devices.
I say sadly because these devices violate rule #1 of digital audio: there should only be 1 sample clock. The moment you start using these mics in combination with any other digital audio stream (e.g. playback via the builtin or some other audio interface), there are now at least 2 sample clocks, creating the requirement that some software layer does resampling to keep things in sync.
Much better to just get a cheap "proper" audio interface, skip the USB mic option, and use a "real" (analog) mic.
I leave the condenser/dynamic question for someone else.
More or less anything from Focusrite, Presonus will serve you well. They'll get the job done until you care about subtle details (which may never be necessary), and might still be fine even after that.
If you're using Linux, the only thing to be sure of is that the device is described as either (1) "class compliant" or (2) "works on iPads" or (3) both. Linux users have much to be grateful towards the iPad for, in particular the ban on drivers meant that USB audio interface makers really had to get their act together to ensure that their devices worked with a generic USB audio driver (just like the one on Linux).
The only reason that I use the condenser is precisely because it will pick up my voice without having to shove my face into the mic. Yeah, it picks up my dog barking in the other room. I only used that as an example of what I've got in my office, not as a recommendation. There are a ton of different condenser mics with different patterns, etc., too. But remember, I'm overloading music stuff for MS Teams meetings. I make no claim that it's optimal, just easy for what I've got plugged into the desk.
But yeah, for most folks a dynamic is fine, cheaper, and more sturdy. Or a Blue Yeti USB mic. My point wasn't to drill into the details and offer a recommendation, though, other than "wire your stuff, and you'll be loads ahead". What is on the other end of those wires is a separate discussion. And I'm probably not the one to lead that discussion. (I'm a musician, not an orator.)
I always thought a headset is better than external mike as you can move around and dont get background noise. Is there a reason not to use a headset mic?
Half my team use speakerphones and it drives me nuts.
Last time I researched this (when I settled on a desktop condenser mic), the only headphones that had good mic quality were the very expensive ones, $200 and higher and/or the professional ones (the ones you see used in sports on the field).
The problem is that, just like cameras, size matters for mics. In order to even sense the full frequency range of the human voice it helps to have a larger diaphragm size. For headsets they range from microscopic to tiny which results in the voice recorded with the headset sounding like "telephone" voice (ie it's designed to capture the most important frequency range of the human voice, the medium frequencies) however, to me that sounds bad, artificial, cheap so I wanted more. Capturing more of the frequency range allows you to sound more natural, you know, like you are actually there in the same room talking to that person.
Depending on your usecase this may or may not be a consideration.
EDIT: as for noise issues, it's always best to avoid recording it if possible but even then there are software techniques to remove it post-facto. In order to achieve the former you can get super/hyper-cardioid pattern microphones that are very sensible recording sound that comes directly in front but not from other directions. However, no pattern will save you if you use a condenser microphone in a noisy room. It may be possible to use a second mic positioned away from your mouth and use software to remove the noise by essentially computing the difference between the two (some headsets can do that). Alternatively you can go for a desktop dynamic mic, just make sure you speak loud enough, but at least you won't get noise :)
The only concern I generally have with microphones for the vast majority of my life is music. Only recently have I concerned myself with the sound quality of online meetings. :) Meaning I'm not the best to ask, but maybe better than anyone else you know. But again, I think anything that's wired with microphone that doesn't have to deal with what comes out of speakers (feedback) is going to be a big improvement, even headsets. And moving around is a factor, as I'm leashed to my desk (though with a long enough headphone cable extension that I can work the resistance bands during long meetings). If I were worried about background noise, I could switch to a dynamic microphone.
Anyway, if you've got a headset you're happy with and no one complains, I'd just use that if it were me. Again, I've got the "good stuff" lying around already, so I just use that. I would not recommend anyone else go that road unless they have other uses for the gear.
How do you connect all this to the computer? A typical PC has a single TRSS analog socket.
Do you use some USB interface that accept a separate microphone and a separate headphones jacks? If you do, any advice on what to look for and what to avoid?
It's the "USB audio interface" part of my list. Take multiple inputs, do some processing onboard, send it down a single USB cable to the computer. It will take anywhere from 1 to 4/8/16 XLR/line/instrument inputs, with headphone out and monitoring of inputs. Here's what I use:
It's overkill for online meetings, in that many of its features will go unused. It's a well-built box, though, with better build quality than the (cheaper) Presonus it replaced. If there's just one mic or input, and some headphone output, then something like this would be less expensive (and less to fiddle with):
Now, for under $100 (surely you have some wired headphone lying around) you'll sound better than 95% of everyone else in online meetings. That's why I have no recommendation or ones to avoid, because for online meetings all it has to do is what it says on the tin to be better than what you've got now, and "good enough" for online meetings. If you're into music, then we can talk about which one is better over another (and frankly, I'm not the one to ask).
The Yeti is what I have. It's a condenser microphone. Condenser microphones generally are more sensitive to quiet sounds and pick up range a bit better, but that means they also pick up _everything_ else much better. That's great if you're in a sound studio, but most of us are not.
You'll make your life easiest if you get clean audio in _before_ you start trying to do further processing to clean it up.
I already had the Yeti on hand, and it was a couple days of tweaking and tuning to get to the point where it will pick up my voice from 6-8" away clearly (so it's not directly in front of my face on camera) but not also transmitting the pitter-patter of every raindrop on the sidewalk outside.
If you're looking for a mic just for audio/video calls, I'd look towards a dynamic mic. Something like the Audio-Technica AT2005 ($80) is generally pretty well reviewed, is 2/3 the price of the Yeti, and still includes a built-in ADC so you can just plug it in via USB and call the job done (don't need to add a bunch of input boxes/etc).
I have heard this as well so I have got one. To my big surprise people on video calls can not tell the difference whether I am using the snowball mic or the one built in the webcam.
I think it's pretty important for professional conversations. We communicate an enormous amount of information through our facial expressions and body language and seeing the person who is speaking is important for understanding their tone correctly. Have you ever been in a video call where one person isn't on camera? It's really weird and awkward.
I HIGHLY recommend getting a 10$ boom-arm from amazon and using that to get the microphone closer to your face. I have this setup and my coworkers say I sound like a radio host because the quality is so good.
All for 115$... single best investment I made in lockdown.
I use a SteelSeries Arctis wireless (2.4Ghz!!) headset. Makes a huge difference for group calls. Also, 2.4G headsets have a HUGE range. I can go from my office, outside for a smoke or anywhere in the house. I really like them!
