@dubharmonic Do you do outbound calls or inbound? Most of mine are inbound and unpredictable. Wish I had some way of auto shutting off JRiver when a call came in over Cisco.
Both outbound and inbound. Most are from Zoom or Meet, though macOS will lower the music volume when a legacy phone call comes in. Keyboard shortcuts help too!
Yep, I hear you. Neither would I. I would only do it with cheap/old headphones that I wouldn't mind getting gunk on. Definitely wouldn't recommend this with your primary set of headphones.
I’d also vote for a dedicated mic+boom arm if you have the space. You could get a usb mic and arm for the price of the Hel 2, and you’d get the better sound quality of your main rig, not to mention a better mic.
I do tons of calls, and for me using a good speakerphone device beats out a headset every time. Just something to consider if you have the privacy to accommodate. I actually use the mic in my Logitech C925e camera,which is the best mic in the C series lineup, and a little polycom for the audio. Music is separate 2 channel and hearing a ring from the Polycom in front of me is not a problem.
@GoodEnoughGear During the summer I have to run a swamp cooler in my office because I don’t have central AC, it’s a big noisy fan and even though it’s not right next to the computer area I’m worried it would make a speaker sound awful. Maybe I’m underestimating the targeting some of these mics can do.
Quite the opposite - the speakerphone mics will be deliberately wide and pick up that fan in a bad way. You'd be better off with a podcast mic with a cardioid pattern. https://www.thepodcasthost.com/equipment/microphone-polar-patterns/. Of course it depends where the fan is exactly :).
I am also looking for good setup for my Teams and WebEx call. Read good things about Poly Callisto 7200 however also looking at condenser mic with headphone out and mute button.
I think the Plantronics (now called Poly? Anyway...) Voyager 5200 has the best noisy-environment performance, and you can get IEM tip adapters for it to make ear fitment more flexible. It's all bluetooth so you wouldn't need a Hel for that.
I've used the Sennheiser HMD 300 Pro a fair bit. The mic can sound great, but the cable feeds microphonics into the mic unless you clip it carefully to your shirt, and it requires a pro level preamp with 60 or 70dB of clean gain. And, the headphone part is basically a shitty HD280. OK for voice, but shitty for music.
I think the Modmic is generally the best headset mic SQ vs price combo out there if you're OK with mounting it to existing headphones. But apparently it doesn't play well with all plug-in power mic inputs, so dunno if Hel would work w/it. But they have a bluetooth version of course
@philipmorgan Thanks for the advice! For now I’m going to use my AirPods Pro with foam tips. The ANC on that practically wipes out the fan noise, and I’m hoping the voice shaping they do will make me sound clearer to customers as well.
For days I don’t have the fan going, I’m considering getting a lavalier mic to clip to my shirt. That would be better quality than the computer mic, would allow me to route the audio through my headphones, but cost way less and take up far less space than a full size condenser mic with arm.
I would, though I don't know for sure a locking connector will mate correctly with a Hel (the screw collar on the locking connector takes up space and can prevent the connector from engaging with the right pins in some cases).
Thanks! I ended up going with two solutions: Bose 700 for ANC with reasonable music quality, and a Yeti Nano with just the basic stand for when I don’t need noise canceling and can use my main headphones for the audio.
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