You can spend an incredible range on a microphone for your PC. Even with a
simple PC, it is possible to record voice or music and prepare to play on the
Internet or as part of your own computer programs. You can also use it for
speech to text Dragon Naturally
Speaking or hand-free control of your computer. There are two major problems
to solve:
- Sound quality
- Compressing the sound to conserve storage and band width
If you don’t compress, your audience will give up waiting for all but the
shortest of clips.
To get decent sound quality you need three things:
- A high-quality microphone. Count on spending
up. For speech-to-text, a mono headset with only one ear covered will suffice.
For listening to music or web presentations, you will want a stereo headset.
- A low-noise sound card microphone or aux-in hookup. This might be an external
POD, or a sound card with a front mounted jack, that is shielded from all the
other RF-noisy computer components in the rear of the computer or near the
monitor. The mike may plug straight to the sound card, or via your stereo or
other amp.
- An appropriate sampling rate. 8-bit 8Khz is what you might get from a telephone.
16-bit 48 KHz is CD quality.
You will need some recording an editing software such as GoldWave.
The Recorder that comes with Windows is just a toy, mainly useful for testing
your hardware is working.
You then need software to compress without too much quality loss to a popular
WEB format such as MP3, Silverlight or RealAudio.
For streaming audio, you may need a special server. Even when compressed, audio
is very bulky taking up many times the storage or bandwidth of the equivalent
transcripts. If you are not careful, using it will soon bankrupt you with the
Internet fees for broadcasting it.
Doing live Internet Radio broadcasts is considerably more difficult. You have to
do all this, especially the compression, in real time.
Desirable microphone features include:
- Noise cancelling. Electronics measure background noise and generate a negative
noise signal added to your voice signal to cancel out background noise.
- A POD. The electronics to convert the analog to digital fit in a little box that
sit on your desk. Only a digital signal goes into your PC, usually via a USB.
The idea is to keep the delicate analog signal away from the electrically noisy
desktop case. Only the robust digital signal goes intou it. This gets rid of hum
and other jittery computer electrical noise. Nuance, the makers of Dragon
Naturally Speaking posts a list
of high quality microphones with a rating of how good they are for speech to
text.
- Low impedance, <60Ω, especially if you plan to use a long cord.
- Mounted on a headset in such a way you can precisely position the microphone
without it wiggling away from where you put it.
 | recommend Amazon⇒Logitech Digital Precision PC Gaming Headset |
USB headset with earphones and noise-canceling microphone. This is what I own myself. It was not my first choice, just the best I could find at local retailers. - Nice crisp sound. No background hum or hiss. They were so quiet at first I thought they were not working.
- Noise canceling microphone that works extremely well. When I record now, I hear dead silence whenever I am not speaking.
- Comfortable behind-the-head grip.
- Long 10 foot cord.
- Nice cushiony grip on the ears with an open gap at the top for air circulation.
- Does not need a driver. It uses the built-it Microsoft driver. You just plug in it and go. It was easier to get going than an analog headset.
- Not truly digital. They are analog headphones with a separate digital USB adapter. The signal is analog for 3 meters (10 feet) or more then digital for the last 10 cm (4 inches) This defeats the point of digital. I suppose a purist could insert a USB extension cord to get the analog part further away from the electrically noisy computer box.
- You can’t adjust the microphone directly in front of your mouth. It is always way off to the side.
- There is no noise-cancelation in the earphones.
- There is yet another volume control to fiddle with on the cord. I wish volume were controlled in one place only!
- Not certified for use with Dragon Naturally Speaking.
- The left and right sides are not labeled.
Microphone: 100 Hz — 16 kHz, filters out low frequencies. Earphones: 20 Hz — 20 kHz. |
|
 | recommend Amazon⇒Logitech ClearChat Pro USB Headset |
| USB headset with earphones and noise-canceling microphone. Microphone: 100 Hz — 10 kHz, filters out low frequencies. Earphones: 20 Hz — 20 kHz. |
|
 | recommend Amazon⇒Sennheiser PC 166 USB Stereo Multimedia Gaming Headset |
| USB headset with earphones and noise-canceling microphone. Microphone: 80 Hz — 15kHz. Earphones: 15 Hz — 23 kHz. |
|
 | recommend Amazon⇒Plantronics DSP 500 Headset (semi-open) |
| USB headset with earphones and noise-canceling microphone. Top-rated by Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking. Earphones: 20 Hz - 20 kHz. |
|
2008-02-18 by Roedy Green ©1997-2008 Canadian Mind Products
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