Jim Courtney at Skype Journal put the FREETALK through the paces, and offered his first impressions… and I quote:
Today is my day of liberation!… Beethoven’s 9th has finished now; the pianissimo phrases were soft, the chorale fortes did not distort; you could clearly hear every word of the chorus in the fourth movement. On finishing the first draft of this post I received a Skype call, answered the front doorbell and let the dog back in at the back door, all while continuing the conversation. At US$79 or £50, this is probably the one most useful new technology hardware item for everyone on your gift list with either a Windows or Mac PC.
Read the full article here.
3 Comments
Hi mtc,
I noticed that Jim Courtney included the following specs about the headset:
Audio quality: uncompressed audio for music (CD quality) and voice.
Frequency range: 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz
Is voice communication (with the TalkFree mic) uncompressed wideband (50hz – 7,000Hz) rather than uncompressed fullband (20 Hz to 20,000 Hz)?
An interesting article I read described narrowband, wideband, and fullband. http://www.acelp.net/media/AMR-WBwp.pdf.
VWT on the Skype forum compared the FreeTalk headset to a wired headset (Plantronics DSP 400). http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=102477&pid=474411&st=0&#entry474411
He noted that listening to music with the FreeTalk headset was “simply superb”, “NOTHING at all like Bluetooth audio”, and equivalent to “a decent wired studio headset”.
On the otherhand, he noted that the Plantronic microphone was “MUCH better”. He was not sure if this a result of:
1) His soundcard vs. the plantronics DSP,
2) The quality of the mic,
3) The wireless connection,
4) All of the above.
In your opinion, does the built-in microphone showcase VoiceMagic technology or could a higher quality microphone be incorporated into the headset? Would it be difficult for an enduser to modify (voiding any warranty) the headset to use a different mic?
Thanks!
Bruinor, The microphone I use on my proto is damn good. Just to be clear, we transmit 65 dB SNR voice, at 16 kHz, uncompressed, uncompanded over the air. If you are getting poor voice quality, keep in mind it is not CD-quality, but it is superior to the voice bandwidth that Skype transmits. So it is not the bottleneck if you will. It has been tested with OneVoice and even SOCOM Navy Seals, to ensure voice recognition algorithms could work reliably. I would hasten to bet you have a defective headset with a bad mic element, or for whatever reason, maybe FREETALK reduced the sensitivity of the mic too much in their final productization. Since I am not seeing broad-based complaints on this, I don’t think it is a systemic issue however.
Good to hear!
My curiousity was based on vwt’s comparison of the Freetalk headset with the wired Plantronic headset (over at the Skype forum). Like you said it is not broad-based.
This could be a subjective thing on vwt’s part, the result of a defective headset with a bad mic element, or even something else.
From what I can gather there shouldn’t be a noticeable difference (based on the specs) between a wired mic and the Freetalk mic.
I have not purchased a headset yet. Though it is on my list.
Thanks for the additional specs on the mic, this nice blog, and your attention to detail. Keep up the good work.