Upgrading my home office setup with a dedicated microphone
My Home office setup
I work mostly from home and have a dedicated office room, whose ceiling is pretty high (~6 meters), which gives a weird sound when I am speaking on Zoom meetings. Weird as in: it sounds like I'm in a cave!
I tried multiple setups and lately I have been using mostly my Bose Quietcomfort 35 and also my Sony WF-1000XM4 (earbuds), but there was always this sound.
Upgrade to a dedicated microphone
A lot of my colleagues use a dedicated microphone, so I knew such a setup would
work.
I tested it about a year ago, but I was not convinced - probably because I
picked a "cheap" microphone on Amazon - the voice level was very low, and I had
to have the microphone very close to my mouth to have people hearing me
correctly. So I sent that back.
I usually do not listen to my own voice that much, so this "cave" sound doesn't necessarily bother me - especially since I use a noise cancelling headset/earbuds.
But while listening to a webinar I did for work (I wanted to see how I performed), it struck me how annoying the sound was. So I decided to give another try to a dedicated microphone.
I picked a RØDE NT-USB, which will not super recent (it got released around 2016), had very good reviews.
Testing it
The box contains the microphone as well as a tripod and a (pretty long) USB-B to
USB-A cable.
I replaced the cable with a much shorted USB-B to USB-C one.
I did a few tests by myself, recording first using my headset, and then switching to the microphone, and the difference was astonishing.
I then asked a few colleagues on the next Zoom call that we were on, if they noticed a difference when I switched microphones - and they all told me "oh, you no longer sound like you're in a cave!" - which validated my new setup!
Improving the setup
This is how the microphone is currently positioned on my desk:
I initially thought about buying a microphone arm stand, but I will stick to the tripod for now, as it's not really annoying and my desk is large enough that I still have enough space to work.
Wrap Up
As the saying goes, "Only the fools don't change their mind" - I'm glad I changed my mind and gave another try to a dedicated microphone, because that makes a huge difference!
Tags: Misc