Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ask Slashdot: Wireless Microphone For Stand-up Meetings?

Posted by timothy on from the pass-around-a-laptop dept.

rolandw writes We have daily stand-ups and normally there is at least one person missing from the room. We relay via on-line chat but the sound quality is rubbish. The remote person sounds great via our speaker when they use a headset but they can't hear what is happening in the room. We need a wireless mic that copes with a large echoing room and will stop feedback. Can you recommend one? We're not an over-funded start-up so don't have an unlimited budget...

59 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. The coping mechanism is to fix the room by ashpool7 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Microphones aren't magic like that. :-/

    1. Re:The coping mechanism is to fix the room by kdub007 · · Score: 1

      Shure 58 Beta

      --
      The correct answer is 42.
    2. Re:The coping mechanism is to fix the room by ottothecow · · Score: 4, Informative
      That is not even close to the right microphone.

      They want to pick up multiple people wandering around a large room. That mic works best right in front of (measured in inches) the source of the sound.

      The right answer is to just buy a polycom phone. Why try to buy a microphone and configure software (since you want a sensitive microphone that picks up everything, but then you will want noise cancellation that blocks out half of what the mic captures) when there is already a product that does this incredibly well for a pretty low price. You can get one for $50 or less on ebay.

      --
      Bottles.
    3. Re:The coping mechanism is to fix the room by msauve · · Score: 1

      "Shure 58 Beta"

      So, high fidelity echo?

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    4. Re:The coping mechanism is to fix the room by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 1

      One trick that can work is the talking stick microphone. Use a regular wireless mic, and each person hands it to the next to talk. It may sound silly on the surface, but it can work well to also control the regular interuptive types that dominate these meetings. Not only a mic, but a talking stick as well.

    5. Re:The coping mechanism is to fix the room by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      So, speak softly and carry a big stick?

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    6. Re:The coping mechanism is to fix the room by Malc · · Score: 1

      Yep, you can improve acoustics a little with soft furnishings and plants for instance. Bonus is a better environment.

      Polycom isn't necessary. I work with two remote scrum teams who both try standing around a shared desktop in their rooms for their stand-ups via Lync. One of them has great audio, the other doesn't. Both are in large echoey rooms. The only difference in systems is their mic and room decoration.

      The team in the room we can't hear clearly have resolved the issue by doing all meetings from their desks using headsets. They also now have long drawn out stand-ups. Hmmm, proves the point about standing up.

    7. Re:The coping mechanism is to fix the room by matbury · · Score: 1

      Parabolic mics pointed at the participants?

      Neither parabolic nor super-cardioid mics would work very well in an echoey room. The sound reflections from the walls would still get picked up pretty well.

      Wireless body mics?

      Expensive. You'd not only need a bunch of wireless mics but also a mixer to channel them all through at the same volume ratios to the person/people at the other end. Personally, I like the "talking-stick" mic idea. It'd be a great way to manage the dynamics of turn-taking in conversations that some people seem to have difficulty with.

  2. The corporate solution by netsavior · · Score: 2

    Pretty much every company ever has already solved this problem with polycom (or similar) conferencing phones(ranging from a few hundred dollars on up)
    http://www.polycom.com/product...

    Also conference phone numbers like Webex at all so lots of people can call in, if you need that sort of thing.

    This is not a new or unsolvable problem, this is "standard office gear" since the 1990s.

    1. Re:The corporate solution by hawguy · · Score: 2

      Pretty much every company ever has already solved this problem with polycom (or similar) conferencing phones(ranging from a few hundred dollars on up)

      http://www.polycom.com/product...

      Also conference phone numbers like Webex at all so lots of people can call in, if you need that sort of thing.

      This is not a new or unsolvable problem, this is "standard office gear" since the 1990s.

      Exactly, we have a 30 seat conference room with a polycom and 2 extension mikes. For company meetings, remote employees dial-in to the conference bridge, and the phone works surprisingly well, everyone in the room can be heard. (it does get confused though when more than one person speaks at once -- it doesn't know which microphone to use, so the two voices fade in and out)

      No need to ditch working solutions just because they are "old school" -- most of our remote users use some VOIP solution to reach the conference bridge (google hangouts, skype, etc)

    2. Re:The corporate solution by ottothecow · · Score: 1

      They even make a portable USB unit if you want some thing that you can carry around instead of fixing in place in the meeting space: http://www.polycom.com/products-services/voice/desktop-solutions/pc-speakerphones/CommunicatorC100S.html

      --
      Bottles.
    3. Re:The corporate solution by rwa2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Heh, I used to do multi-conference room / theater AV integration for large defense companies. The number 1 problem was always audio.

      1. Test. Test test test. You can get almost any cheap thing working well if you bother to test and tune everything BEFORE the meeting. The most expensive thing can fail for silly reasons if you don't bother to test everything BEFORE the meeting (usually because some executive schlupp dials into both the audio bridge and VTC MCU at the last minute). Then freeze the configuration. Yeah, good luck freezing the configuration with engineers and tinkerers running around.

      2. POTS sucks. Maybe some telephony devices are able to negotiate better than 8kHz 8-bit audio sampling if their codecs match up, but you're better off going with something with VTC-quality audio using H323. Most VoIP teleconferencing lines don't bother trying to beat POTS audio quality. So even if you have a nice Polycom phone that does good AEC and NC, you're still going to strain to hear what's going on.

      3. Speakerphones suck. Most of them don't bother doing good AEC and NC. Get a good bluetooth or USB headset. Gaming teamspeak headsets are relatively cheap. As long as it's digital, so they don't introduce any analog amp noise from the system.

      4. PC/laptop microphones suck. I don't know why no one bothers to test them to the same level as your average cheap dumbphone speakerphone. They pick up all kinds of system electrical noise, and rely on software to do any AEC or NC, which adds more latency. About a quarter of the people in our daily standup have laptop microphone fails on Google Hangouts or Skype each day. Most end up dialing back in from their smartphone when that happens.

      Anyway, all that said, our current standup room setup consists of a Google Hangouts room on a permanently-fixed Mac mini with a $50 "Blue Snowball USB Condenser Microphone" and Logitech USB camera attached to it (the USB audio coming in from the Logitech camera was deemed insufficient, even for the small room we had it in.). For remote participants, I've had good experiences with extended use of the $200+ Jabra PRO 9470 Mono Wireless Headset, which is switchable between PC and POTS/VoIP phone use, but a simpler/cheaper bluetooth headset would probably work just as well paired with smartphone/PC.

      And set up an echo server for everyone to test their setups. https://support.google.com/cha... . Or at least go to http://www.onlinemictest.com/ or something. Did I mention you should test?

      I'm also looking forward to someday playing with Amazon's Echo thingy someday, since for $200 it seems to have a lot of the technical audio features of more expensive audio conferencing systems:
      http://www.amazon.com/oc/echo/
      assuming it will be able to act as a simple bluetooth speakerphone instead of only for all of the other AI junk they're cramming into it.

    4. Re:The corporate solution by radarskiy · · Score: 1

      "it seems to have a lot of the technical audio features of more expensive audio conferencing systems:"

      Except audio conferencing.

  3. Pass around a real mic. by FooAtWFU · · Score: 1

    Get one, mmaybe two real wireless microphones from Shure or someone like that -- think "audio equipment catalog", not "computer equipment catalog". Get the cables to hook the base station up to standard microphone input. Pass the mic around to whoever is talking; it doubles as the "currently speaking" token (and you only have one person at a time talking at standup, right?). Make sure you have lots of spare batteries (presumably rechargeable) in a convenient location.

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    1. Re:Pass around a real mic. by bigmo · · Score: 3, Informative

      I hate to admit it but I am an AV guy, for a very long time. Passing around a wireless hand held mic (or even one with a wire if you can't afford W/L) is the only good solution. A cheap mic 4" from your mouth will sound better than an extremely expensive mic 4 feet away.

      A fairly decent W/L mic from Shure is a bit less than a grand (a really good one is about $4000). You can get a W/L mic from a cheapo audio catalog for a few hundred bucks, but if you really can't afford a decent one, I'd suggest getting a decent wired mic - maybe a hundred bucks tops. It's not that big a deal to pass around a wired mic if you're at a conference table and if the room is big, get several and put them on stands so people can walk up to them and ask questions or whatever.

      If the problem isn't big enough to warrant spending much of anything, just have the main presenter use a mic & repeat any questions.

      By the way, if you don't like how much newer mics cost, tell the FCC to stop selling off the white space frequencies that W/L mics use.

    2. Re:Pass around a real mic. by rolandw · · Score: 2

      Get one, mmaybe two real wireless microphones from Shure or someone like that -- think "audio equipment catalog", not "computer equipment catalog". Get the cables to hook the base station up to standard microphone input. Pass the mic around to whoever is talking; it doubles as the "currently speaking" token (and you only have one person at a time talking at standup, right?). Make sure you have lots of spare batteries (presumably rechargeable) in a convenient location.

      Passing around a real mic is exactly what I am hoping to do. I was asking /. for recommendations for such a mic! Looks like I've got to check out Shure and Blue Microphone's offerings. Many thanks for your comments!

  4. Ugh by sexconker · · Score: 1

    1: Stop doing "stand-ups".

    2: Use a wired mic (or several). Alternatively, use the wired phones you likely have at your desks.

  5. Re:Go to your friendly local printer by PPH · · Score: 1

    blue-sky corporate bullshit canvasses

    Or some material from despair.com

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  6. Wireless headsets by rowls · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What about equipping all meeting participants with a wireless headset (headphone with mic). A base station in the room would connect to each headset, and transmit audio to remote participants. I also work for a company with many remote employees. When all meeting participants are at their desk using headsets, people are easy to understand, but as soon as some of the meeting participants are in a conference room with a speaker phone it becomes very difficult to hear people. As a result we do a lot of meetings from our desks even though many of us are in the same building and could benefit from a face to face meeting.

    Does any device like this exist at any price?

    1. Re:Wireless headsets by ashpool7 · · Score: 1

      Well, if you're willing to wear a bodypack, they make all the components you can put together for this setup.

  7. Not enough information. by msauve · · Score: 2

    Is your room a natatorium, or a broom closet? How many people? Around a table, or classroom seating? Have you tried a proper conference room phone (not a regular speakerphone)? Is your phone system analog, digital, or IP (for the latter two, the solution may depend on the system in use)?

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:Not enough information. by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Yep, you got it. The acoustic space is key. If it can be controlled.

      As a side note. I believe many artifacts can be controlled for or eliminated in the electronics. Price range may be out of his league. Prices to correct a room can also quickly get out of hand.

      As somebody else says, though, do experiments (test, test, test). A one foot movement of the mic in any particular direction can make audible improvements.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    2. Re:Not enough information. by rolandw · · Score: 1

      It is neither a swimming pool (yup, I had to look up "natatorium" and it's an indoor swimming pool) nor is it a closet. It's a room 8m by 4m with 4m ceiling in the middle of a grade 1 listed former royal palace in the middle of London. The people - 6 to 10 - are standing around the end of the table. We have tried a polycom phone through our Asterisk based VOIP phone system but that requires people to sit down and it has even worse echo. I can't fix the room because I need special permission to even drill a hole in the wall (that's what being listed does for you). I can either move out to a new location (seems drastic) or find a solution. There have been some good recommendations for mics to look at (Shure and Blue Microphones) and I've already found one dealer who is a stockist for both so I'll go and take a look and will report back.

    3. Re:Not enough information. by MadKeithV · · Score: 1

      You can fix the room without drilling holes in anything.

      The really cheap ghetto solution is to buy bales or rolls of rock wool, just leave them in the plastic, and stack them in the corners of the room. Ugly, smells a bit funny, and not everyone likes the idea of being in the proximity of bare rock wool, but it works.

      More expensively you might get something like Auralex Promax stands and put them in the corners.

      It kind of sounds like you might all be on the same side of the microphone, or at least have that option by moving where you stand or moving the microphone. In that case you could get one of the Reflexion Filters (e.g. the Fame Reflexion Screen Premium for a cheap option) to screen off half of the room. I've used one, and they work surprisingly well.

    4. Re:Not enough information. by msauve · · Score: 1

      One easy thing which can help with room echo, but not require modifications would be to buy or build stands on which you can drape cloth or hang curtains.

      A directional microphone can help, if all the people are at one end of the table, so it can be positioned and pointed at the group. I wouldn't expect miracles, though. What's needed most is a system with good echo cancellation. Polycom's in my experience are pretty good. But, they make models for different size rooms. You might find a model with remote microphones to work better, as they can be distributed to be closer to the speakers.

      You may wish to speak with a firm which has experience with conference room systems (either a telcom system provider or pro audio one).

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  8. Re:Simple solution... by MadKeithV · · Score: 1

    How about just tell them to be in the room when you do the standup? This solution is simple and costs absolutely nothing.

    Kinda difficult when that person isn't even in the same country.

  9. You don't need a mic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You don't need a new mic, you need better cables.

    I recommend Monster or Audioquest for the ultimate in high fidelity audio performance.

    1. Re:You don't need a mic... by elrs3 · · Score: 1

      And don't forget these $10,000 directional ethernet cables to improve network performance... http://www.audiovisualonline.c...

    2. Re:You don't need a mic... by dfsmith · · Score: 1

      And make sure the room is oxygen free. No! I meant the cable. Um. One or the other should work.

  10. Re:Polycom by afidel · · Score: 1

    Personally I'd go with the CX3000, it does POTS, SIP, and USB connectivity and you can use the expansion microphones which is huge if you have more than a few people on the call.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  11. Re:Polycom by PetiePooo · · Score: 1

    The Jabra Speak 410 is also an excellent USB speakerphone with feedback suppression. Works well with Lync on Windows or Mac, in my personal experience. This would require someone bringing their laptop into the conference room just to run the VoIP app of your choice, though, but is likely to be a cheaper solution than any Polycom phone.

  12. Re:Simple solution... by hawguy · · Score: 1

    How about just tell them to be in the room when you do the standup? This solution is simple and costs absolutely nothing.

    Unless your employees live in the same building as your office, there's a non-zero cost to having everyone in the office for meetings. At my office, even though employees are all "local", depending on traffic it can take up to 2 hours for some of them to get to the office.

  13. Look for "Boundary" or "PZM" Microphones by elrs3 · · Score: 1

    What you are looking for is a "boundary microphone", also known as a "Pressure Zone Mic (PZM)"

    1. Re:Look for "Boundary" or "PZM" Microphones by elrs3 · · Score: 1

      For example, one like this: http://youtu.be/xjO_FM3Gej0

    2. Re:Look for "Boundary" or "PZM" Microphones by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      I remember trying to use PZM's when they first become popular for theater. Turned out not so good, as it amplified every footstep and thump on the stage. Since there's usually half a dozen thumps sitting around your typical conference table, PZM's might be contra-indicated.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    3. Re:Look for "Boundary" or "PZM" Microphones by elrs3 · · Score: 1

      No microphone is immune from thumps and bumps, and I hope that the OP's meetings aren't as active as a theater production; I suggested PZM because it should better handle the acoustics of meeting room than the current mic.

    4. Re:Look for "Boundary" or "PZM" Microphones by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      I set one of those up in my old office, it was great 'cos I just basically forgot it was there.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    5. Re:Look for "Boundary" or "PZM" Microphones by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      I usually set PZMs up on the largest complete wall (no doorways or windows on the wall), and set the sensitivity above the noise floor. Output floor is thus zero, and events on adjacent walls or the floor aren't picked up unless you can actually *hear* it.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  14. The problem is the form of the meeting by TJ_Phazerhacki · · Score: 1
    You will never fix this problem with a technical solution. Either completely virtualize the meeting using formal telepresence, or acknowledge that people won't be able to attend and have a meeting without them.

    If you absolutely must do it the way you are doing, just buy a used Polycom and be done with it.

    --
    Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
  15. you won't be able to fix the large echoing room wi by unami · · Score: 1

    either get the microphone closer to the person speaking (e.g. handing a microphone around) to tune out most of the room, or make the room sound better (curtains, reflection cancelling wall panels, ...).

  16. The sound sucks because your gear sucks. by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    Get management to pony up for real AV gear. The problem is your gear is garbage and not designed for the use. There is no magical CHEAP thing you can buy.

    Now get a biamp or BSS DSP and 4 boundary mics hanging from the ceiling on some 18" diameter glass plates... I can make a meeting room cover all voices in there perfectly for video and teleconference.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  17. People by Peter+(Professor)+Fo · · Score: 1

    A $10 microphone won't be much good for a variety of people. OTOH ask where is the signal degradation happening? If you don't know then find out.

  18. Not wireless, but will probably solve the problem by HagbardMytrCeline · · Score: 1

    I was recently looking for a solution to a similar problem; speech-recognition from any spot in a living-room with a air-conditioner and lots of PC-fans running 24/7.
    The only thing I could find that that was not a conference phone but still had speaker-tracking and echo-cancellation was this:
    https://www.acousticmagic.com/...

  19. It's not the PC microphone ... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    4. PC/laptop microphones suck. I don't know why no one bothers to test them to the same level as your average cheap dumbphone speakerphone. They pick up all kinds of system electrical noise, ...

    The problem usually isn't the microphone. It's the way it's wired (per the standard) and the way the desktop/laptop is powered.

    PC microphones are wired UNbalanced: They have a signal and a ground wire, rather than the + and - signal wires and everything-but-desired-signal cancelation of the balanced wiring setups typical of professional microphones.

    Laptops typically use power supplies that are not grounded, so they don't require a three-prong outlet. This usually ends up with the stray capacatance to BOTH sides of the line wiring capacitively coupling equally to the laptop "ground". That means the "ground" of the laptop is at half the line voltage - about 60 volts of AC (a rotten approximation of a sine wave plus lots of other junk it picked up at an assortment of frequencies). The capacitance is substantial - not enough to shock you if you touch the laptop and ground, but enough to feel a buzz if you rub your hand lightly across a "grounded" metallic part of the device.

    Plug in the unblanced microphone and hold it, put the headset on your head, or just leave it sitting on the table. The "ground" is at 60V and you are driving maybe a couple MA of it down the shield wire. The voltage drop of that current (along with any other pickup) adds straight onto your audio input. The best microphone in the world will perform horribly if hooked up this way.

    Try this: Unplug the laptop and let it run on battery. Notice how almost all of the noise disappears. You can also get rid of most of the noise by tying a decent ground onto the laptop. (Unfortunately, many meetings last longer than the laptop batteries...)

    Plug in a VGA monitor with a three-prog power plug, which grounds the case of the laptop via the shield and the two hold-in screwd. I've done that without actually hooking up the monitor (which would have disabled my laptop screen) by adding a couple of the nuts scavenged from another DB connector as conductive spacers so the actual signal pins are not quite into the plug. And done this on a docking station, so the laptop headset was quieted when the laptop was docked, even though I used none of the docking station features except the power input.

    Make a second cable with a three-prong plug to bring a ground up to the laptop. Green wire from the third pin to a screw into or clip onto such a chassis ground point.

    Or bypass the problem completely by using a USB microphone. These digitize the audio right next to the microphone proper, with everything floating at the same voltage so nothing substantial is picked up betwen the air pressure sensor and the A-D converter.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    1. Re:It's not the PC microphone ... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      Or bypass the problem completely by using a USB microphone. These digitize the audio right next to the microphone proper, with everything floating at the same voltage so nothing substantial is picked up betwen the air pressure sensor and the A-D converter.

      Bluetooth headsets work great for this, too. Most current generation laptops already have the bluetooth central-role radio onboard. Or get a cheap low-profile bluetooth dongle.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    2. Re:It's not the PC microphone ... by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Laptops typically use power supplies that are not grounded, so they don't require a three-prong outlet. This usually ends up with the stray capacatance [SIC] to BOTH sides of the line wiring capacitively [SIC] coupling equally to the laptop "ground". That means the "ground" of the laptop is at half the line voltage - about 60 volts of AC (a rotten approximation of a sine wave plus lots of other junk it picked up at an assortment of frequencies).

      Last I checked, laptops don't run on AC power, and they of course have a ground as that is the negative side of DC. In house electric, you actually have two grounds. The round connection (in the US) is your house ground, it is generally connected to a pole hammered into the ground beside your electric meter. The Neutral (usually the black wire) is also a ground, it is grounded near the step down transformers in your neighborhood.

      There are noise problems with laptop mics, but they are more from the space constraints than dirty power. Laptop Mics also have issues as they are not physically isolated from the laptop, so it will pick up everything (keyboard clicks, speakers in the laptop, whatever) and the screen even acts as a huge resonator which causes even more noise in the laptop mic.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    3. Re:It's not the PC microphone ... by rwa2 · · Score: 1

      Ha, thanks, awesome insight coming from "Ungrounded Lightning"!

      On some of the systems we put a neutral current eliminator to try to "fix" the 60Hz buzz coming off of improperly grounded computers. I think it was overkill for what we were doing, because by that point we had given up trying to use internal audio cards for some of our rackmount computers and were using SoundBlaster Live! USB audio dongles where we couldn't use digital audio, which made most of our system noise problems go away. But it would be nice to have an affordable NCE for some applications, like being able to run amplified speakers from my phone or laptop while they're charging.

      In my car I get alternator noise if I try to charge my phone while it's playing music to the aux input. I can make it go away by using a Qi wireless charger instead of plugging in the USB directly... with the added bonus that I'm not fiddling with trying to plug my phone in while I'm driving. Another way to make the alternator noise go away is paradoxically plugging an inverter into the accessory port and using a standard 120V AC wall wart USB charger with the phone. (shrug). Next car will probably have a bluetooth head unit, which I'm sure brings on another set of annoyances.

  20. We are using Hivefive by cjav · · Score: 1

    I'm almost always the only person joining our team meetings remotely. I could barely hear people in the room. I searched for a hardware our small startup could afford. I decided to give a try to Highfive. The wide camera video feed is a nice plus to an outstanding sound quality.

  21. expensive but worth it by rickb928 · · Score: 1

    Any of the Sennheiser or Shure wireless packs.

    Countryman E6 type headset. Best every

    For $700-$800+ you've solved the microphone problem. Look for used, maybe save half.

    Maybe a Shure BLX14, $300

    An Audio-Technica System 8 might satisfy your needs, $200 +/-

    Then go fix your speaker placement and EQ the room. The Countryman likes a slight cut at 600Hz for vocals, choose the capsule cover carefully. The A-T mic I don't know well.

    --
    deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
  22. MXL AC404 and a Blue Snowball are what we use by dalosla · · Score: 1

    We do daily stand-ups between 2 locations. At one end which is a large office, we have a MXL AC404 USB conference microphone on a table that people stand or sit around. People around the table sound great, and it is omnidirectional, so it doesn't matter where people are. If someone goes off to scribble on the whiteboard and is 8 or 10 feet away from the mic, you can hear him or her, but it doesn't sound as good because it gets a little soft. If you keep an eye out on Amazon, or use camelcamelcamel, you can find this open box for less than $40.

    At the other end, we use a Blue Snowball because the standup takes place in a large open room and we want the cardioid pickup pattern so we don't pick up extraneous noise. As with the other microphone, sound quality is a lot better when you are near the mic. I had someone who spoke softly, and I always had to get her to stand in front of the microphone, but a fellow with a booming voice was ok from 8 feet away.

  23. Re:Simple solution... by Malc · · Score: 1

    Two hours for a one-way commute? That doesn't sound like a very good life balance. I think if that was our teams that we'd end up doing a mixed online/f2f meeting as if some of the team were remote.

  24. Re:Simple solution... by hawguy · · Score: 1

    Two hours for a one-way commute? That doesn't sound like a very good life balance. I think if that was our teams that we'd end up doing a mixed online/f2f meeting as if some of the team were remote.

    That's why we have flex-hours and most people work from home most of the week. Right now, we don't even have enough desk space for everyone if they come to work at the same time.

    In this area, it's not just work-life balance, but housing-work balance -- the farther you drive, the cheaper your house, which can make the difference between being able to afford living in the area or not. Even if you can afford the mortgage on a $750K starter house, not everyone can cover the downpayment, and when making offers they are competing against people paying cash.

  25. Re:Jabra Speak USB and Bluetooth by rolandw · · Score: 1

    Works like a charm in somewhat noisy environments too.
    http://www.jabra.com/headsets-...

    We already have one of these. The speaker is good. It's the mic that's rubbish. If you hold it too close the sound is mashed. If you don't then no-one can hear you because of the room...

    Thanks for the suggestion anyway.

  26. Flush mount PZM by drkim · · Score: 1

    You need two things:

    1. On your end, a flush mount PZM. Mount this in the center of your table.
    http://www.crownaudio.com/medi...
    http://www.crownaudio.com/medi...

    2. They MUST use headphones (not speakers) on the other end, or you will get massive feedback.

  27. Re:Simple solution... by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 1

    I currently work for a small (50 employees) engineering company. One person in my present team's weekly standup is in Montreal, Canada. Three are in New York, USA. Three are in London, England. The rest are in Glasgow, Scotland. In my last job, with a major international bank, one standup member was in Chennai, India; three in Geneva, Switzerland. One in London, England. And the rest in Glasgow. In the real world 'everyone in one room' just isn't going to happen.

    --
    I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
  28. solved in 1965 by MooseTick · · Score: 1

    This problem was solved in 1965. Just get a Cone of Silence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_Silence). Just be sure you don't get it from a "discount place".

    --
    Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
  29. Re:Polycom by ihtoit · · Score: 1

    I use a Heil GM-5, it's great for everything from studio to auditorium to outside recording/broadcast (even looks good on a butt-ugly boom). For a stereo input via minidisc (if I'm not doing live in particular - and certainly if I'm shooting for stock footage, as I've yet to come across a camera with any kind of decent internal mike) I use a Yoga EM-268.

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  30. FaceTime? by mrgs123 · · Score: 1

    Saw this on kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... Might be interesting...

  31. Sennheiser speakerphone by illtud · · Score: 1

    http://en-uk.sennheiser.com/sp...

    Works for me (on linux) - good pickup for a medium-sized room, good sound (though you can use it just as a mic).