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 8 kHz 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 |
| asin: B000RVD89M |
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.
- 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.
- Behind-the-head grip is just as idiotic as it looks. It squeezes your head uncomfortably and keeps slipping down. The band should be on top.
- 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. However, they are substantially lower noise than conventional headphones where the analog signal has to wend its way inside the comuter near all manner of noise sources.
- 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 |
| asin: B000TG4AGU |
| 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 |
| asin: B000H0IDUW |
| USB headset with earphones and noise-canceling microphone. Microphone: 80 Hz — 15 kHz. Earphones: 15 Hz — 23 kHz. |
|
 | recommend Amazon⇒Plantronics DSP 500 Headset (semi-open) |
| asin: B00012K7PA |
| 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 ©1997-2009 Canadian Mind Products
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