Good mic/headset for speech recognition despite other speakers close by?
October 15, 2019 6:54 AM Subscribe
Small team looking to try dictation on Dragon NaturallySpeaking in an open-space setup; need mic that will pick voice well, but not the background noise.
Hey there,
I'm part of a small team trying to implement a setup where 4-5 of us will work by dictating texts in a specialized software, Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking, instead of typing them.
We already had a tiny closed room for this but it was getting too many concurrent users for the available space, so we are getting moved to a relatively quiet, but open, area. Picture groups of 4 L-shaped desks with something like 5 ft tall dividers.
We are looking into mic/headset options that will do a great job picking the directional audio of the person in front of it, but not the background murmur of the other speakers. It should also hopefully work correctly with Dragon, but it doesn't have to be a mic that's advertized by Nuance.
P.S. As for price, we were thinking of mid-to-high tier, so probably at least in the low hundreds (I'm speaking Canadian dollars here but don't worry about the converting from American dollars, we'll do the shopping). It's not the main consideration though so all your suggestions are welcome and I guess if it's cheaper, then all the better.
Thank you!
Hey there,
I'm part of a small team trying to implement a setup where 4-5 of us will work by dictating texts in a specialized software, Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking, instead of typing them.
We already had a tiny closed room for this but it was getting too many concurrent users for the available space, so we are getting moved to a relatively quiet, but open, area. Picture groups of 4 L-shaped desks with something like 5 ft tall dividers.
We are looking into mic/headset options that will do a great job picking the directional audio of the person in front of it, but not the background murmur of the other speakers. It should also hopefully work correctly with Dragon, but it doesn't have to be a mic that's advertized by Nuance.
P.S. As for price, we were thinking of mid-to-high tier, so probably at least in the low hundreds (I'm speaking Canadian dollars here but don't worry about the converting from American dollars, we'll do the shopping). It's not the main consideration though so all your suggestions are welcome and I guess if it's cheaper, then all the better.
Thank you!
Never done this as a Dragon user, but what you are looking for is 'noise cancelling' microphones. I assume each user has their own Dragon profile and gets good performance in a quiet environment, as I expect that this would have a bearing on the performance of the profile in the noisier environment. When you have your list of candidate mics, buy one (the cheapest?) and test.
posted by GeeEmm at 1:46 PM on October 15, 2019
posted by GeeEmm at 1:46 PM on October 15, 2019
No direct experience, but you might want to look into gaming headsets.
posted by oceano at 7:16 AM on October 16, 2019
posted by oceano at 7:16 AM on October 16, 2019
Response by poster: So far I've looked into a whole gamut of desk microphones and headsets for dictation, gaming, livestreaming, recording, call centers and office environments, etc.
I'm getting a picture that integrated noise-cancelling tech might also hurt speech recognition, but it's hard to be sure with the dearth of direct experience accounts.
Thanks for taking the time to look into this anyway, GeeEmm and oceano.
posted by CelebrenIthil at 7:29 AM on October 16, 2019
I'm getting a picture that integrated noise-cancelling tech might also hurt speech recognition, but it's hard to be sure with the dearth of direct experience accounts.
Thanks for taking the time to look into this anyway, GeeEmm and oceano.
posted by CelebrenIthil at 7:29 AM on October 16, 2019
Best answer: Here's what I use to dictate in an open office: a court "stenographer" mic. I use the desk arm, as the head strap is effective but embarrassing. It's something I tripped over years ago, and it feels like only recently are they starting to market for the speech recognition market.
It works well for speech recognition, but for calls and whatnot my voice sounds a bit congested. There isn't a huge difference between the low and mid cost, but the mid cost has a hardware gain adjust which might be useful. The additional output of the most expensive one doesn't make sense for speech recognition use cases.
There are other brands of this, but this is the only one I have personal experience with.
Gaming headsets focus more on audio than voice quality, and low voice quality can greatly affect Dragon accuracy.
Arm + lowest cost headset runs $390, but you might want an external USB soundcard. I was using an Andrea USB dongle ($50) but this $12 dongle also works well and has a hardware mute button, which is nice. (All prices USD.)
posted by Anonymous Function at 8:57 PM on October 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
It works well for speech recognition, but for calls and whatnot my voice sounds a bit congested. There isn't a huge difference between the low and mid cost, but the mid cost has a hardware gain adjust which might be useful. The additional output of the most expensive one doesn't make sense for speech recognition use cases.
There are other brands of this, but this is the only one I have personal experience with.
Gaming headsets focus more on audio than voice quality, and low voice quality can greatly affect Dragon accuracy.
Arm + lowest cost headset runs $390, but you might want an external USB soundcard. I was using an Andrea USB dongle ($50) but this $12 dongle also works well and has a hardware mute button, which is nice. (All prices USD.)
posted by Anonymous Function at 8:57 PM on October 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: @Anonymous Function
Wow you opened up a whole new avenue – I wasn't remotely aware of the existence of dedicated steno mics like those.
Taking calls is not a huge part of our jobs so this shouldn't be an issue, but having to hold it in place with one hand is probably out of the question (Dragon or not, we have to do a bunch of keyboard and mouse inputs) so we'd need to look up the arms/mask. I'm trying to look up the accessories on the page you linked, but I'd love to know what you picked/where you picked yours.
I also wonder about the cleaning of a mic that's in such close-contact with the mouth/nose area – especially since in our corner of the world, the common cold is that, *very common* almost all-year round! You can easily catch it three times a year, and that's not to speak of allergies.
But very interesting! I'm going to look further into it.
posted by CelebrenIthil at 6:47 AM on October 17, 2019
Wow you opened up a whole new avenue – I wasn't remotely aware of the existence of dedicated steno mics like those.
Taking calls is not a huge part of our jobs so this shouldn't be an issue, but having to hold it in place with one hand is probably out of the question (Dragon or not, we have to do a bunch of keyboard and mouse inputs) so we'd need to look up the arms/mask. I'm trying to look up the accessories on the page you linked, but I'd love to know what you picked/where you picked yours.
I also wonder about the cleaning of a mic that's in such close-contact with the mouth/nose area – especially since in our corner of the world, the common cold is that, *very common* almost all-year round! You can easily catch it three times a year, and that's not to speak of allergies.
But very interesting! I'm going to look further into it.
posted by CelebrenIthil at 6:47 AM on October 17, 2019
Best answer: I got the SR-Pro 1 and the head strap first, since they were Amazon Prime eligible. Then, I ordered additional face masks and the arm directly from the company. (The masks were to upgrade to the padded mask they include by default now.)
Regarding cleaning, the microphones come with two foam liners (this is what kills the noise), and the face padding is removable. For the foam liners, I pull the liner at the end of the day so that the microphone can dry out. Next time I use it, I put the other foam in. I haven't otherwise cleaned them in well over a year. I don't breath in through the mask, so I haven't really thought about it. I have seasonal allergies, so the arm makes it possible to quickly look away and cover a sneeze or take a breath through a congested nose. With the strap, I'd have to sneeze or breathe through the foam, or fiddle with it as fast as I could.
I just confirmed in the manual that I should be cleaning the foam in soapy water, and the padding can be either soaped up or wiped down with an alcohol wipe.
There's another possibility which I've seen people really like, and it's to spend abut 2-3 times as much on a professional cardiod headset with insane background noise reduction. A model well liked in the Talon community is the DPA d:fine (>$600) with a USB adapter ($200-$600). You could have someone talking at you, and the mic apparently hears nothing.
(I went with the court mic as I prefer not to add constant dictation noise into the open office.)
posted by Anonymous Function at 9:08 AM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Regarding cleaning, the microphones come with two foam liners (this is what kills the noise), and the face padding is removable. For the foam liners, I pull the liner at the end of the day so that the microphone can dry out. Next time I use it, I put the other foam in. I haven't otherwise cleaned them in well over a year. I don't breath in through the mask, so I haven't really thought about it. I have seasonal allergies, so the arm makes it possible to quickly look away and cover a sneeze or take a breath through a congested nose. With the strap, I'd have to sneeze or breathe through the foam, or fiddle with it as fast as I could.
I just confirmed in the manual that I should be cleaning the foam in soapy water, and the padding can be either soaped up or wiped down with an alcohol wipe.
There's another possibility which I've seen people really like, and it's to spend abut 2-3 times as much on a professional cardiod headset with insane background noise reduction. A model well liked in the Talon community is the DPA d:fine (>$600) with a USB adapter ($200-$600). You could have someone talking at you, and the mic apparently hears nothing.
(I went with the court mic as I prefer not to add constant dictation noise into the open office.)
posted by Anonymous Function at 9:08 AM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: @Anonymous Function
Thank you so much for all this useful extra info, you are a gem!
I was looking at cardioid headsets before you let me know about the mask mics; some of those appear to be television/stage grade, which might be overkill (especially on having to pay more on account if all the "it needs to look very discreet" front, which is a non-issue in and office environment). But yeah, I imagine the sound quality and noise cancelling is top-notch.
I forgot to mention it earlier, but you do open up the very important question of getting USB soundcards too – I know we're saddled with pre-made Dell towers I cannot find the soundcard info for, past a driver called "AMD High Definition Audio Device". I imagine the extra dongle might be much needed.
Thank you so much for the invaluable input!
posted by CelebrenIthil at 9:43 AM on October 17, 2019
Thank you so much for all this useful extra info, you are a gem!
I was looking at cardioid headsets before you let me know about the mask mics; some of those appear to be television/stage grade, which might be overkill (especially on having to pay more on account if all the "it needs to look very discreet" front, which is a non-issue in and office environment). But yeah, I imagine the sound quality and noise cancelling is top-notch.
I forgot to mention it earlier, but you do open up the very important question of getting USB soundcards too – I know we're saddled with pre-made Dell towers I cannot find the soundcard info for, past a driver called "AMD High Definition Audio Device". I imagine the extra dongle might be much needed.
Thank you so much for the invaluable input!
posted by CelebrenIthil at 9:43 AM on October 17, 2019
I'm using OS X, which has a specific 1/8 mm jack for cellphone headsets. One reason I use the external sound card is so that the wiring for the microphone works. Most PCs have two jacks, one for speakers and one for a microphone.
I'm guessing that you won't have issues unless the onboard sound card is particularly bad....
posted by Anonymous Function at 10:27 AM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm guessing that you won't have issues unless the onboard sound card is particularly bad....
posted by Anonymous Function at 10:27 AM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Oh, I see – mac problem. Yeah we do have the two jacks on our PCs. I dare hope, then, that the -undisclosed- sound card that they come equipped with is enough as-is. :)
posted by CelebrenIthil at 12:11 PM on October 17, 2019
posted by CelebrenIthil at 12:11 PM on October 17, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by CelebrenIthil at 6:57 AM on October 15, 2019