Voice is the most critical component of any communication system because it creates a personal connection between people. The ability to enhance voice clarity and ensure every nuance is heard and understood can make the difference between a successful sales pitch to an international customer or a frustrating exchange that ends in misunderstanding. If you are tasked with providing a quality user experience, this level of clarity—where every word is heard and conversations flow naturally—is the desired outcome the right conferencing system can help make a reality.

This introduction to room considerations and audio terminology will help you plan and invest in a conferencing solution that will create successful, productive meetings with any remote participant.

 

Ambient Noise

Ambient noise is the background or room noise that occurs in every space. These noises compete with voice audio and can make it difficult to understand what is being said.

Reverb

Reverb is the tendency of noise to “hang” in a room. It is created when sound is reflected in the room. A room with a number of hard, reflective surfaces will change how the audio sounds. It may sound hollow, reducing intelligibility.

Acoustic Echo Cancellation

When audio from the remote caller is picked up by the microphones in your conference room and sent back to the caller, it creates echo. Echo is extremely distracting and creates listener fatigue. Echo can be eliminated by a system with AEC. The duplicate signals are simply removed digitally.

Digital Signal Processing

DSP refers to various techniques used to enhance the clarity and intelligibility of audio before it is transmitted to the remote party.

 

These acoustical problems can often be addressed in your choice of conferencing system. Echo is the easiest to address. Any conferencing system with AEC can digitally remove the echo for you. Ambient Noise can be reduced by addressing noise sources and removing them, relying on noise reduction in the DSP or simply moving the microphones away from the noise source and closer to the person speaking. Reverb is trickier to address. You can either treat the room with room absorbing panels or place the microphones closer to the person speaking.

Creating a Great conferencing experience

Biamp’s Beamtracking microphones deliver the next best thing to a live meeting. Our microphones come in a pendant design that can be raised and lowered from the ceiling. This gives you the flexibility to get the microphones close to the voices in the room without cluttering up the conference table

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Traditional beamforming mics “map” out the room by directing mic arrays to fixed locations in the room.  Participants are then limited only to the area where the mic array is pointed. We think that is all wrong. Our “Beamtracking” technology tracks to the voices of the meeting participants, allowing them to move freely about the room. They can sit, stand, write on the whiteboard… it doesn’t matter. The audio quality will not be affected.

And finally, our Beamtracking microphones can scale to any room size. You can utilize a single microphone for smaller huddle spaces and cover up to 20-foot diameter. Or you can daisy chain up 3 mics together for larger conference room spaces. Each chain requires only a single cable connection back to your DSP.

You can use the TCM-1 Calculator tool to enter your room variables for a recommendation on microphone configuration for your conference rooms. We even have sample recording playbacks to determine which setup meets your needs.

Learn more about our TCM microphones and schedule your live demo now.