windows 7 - Annoying sound from microphone in headphone

05
2014-04
  • Questioner

    I recently bought a Plantronics bluetooth headset for VOIP in Skype. But I am facing an annoying problem. The microphone is really sensitive and I could hear all the background noises and my sound though the headphone (of blutooth headset). I tried to disable the bluetooth headset in Playback devices and I could hear the amplified background noise through speakers! I checked if there is a microphone boost option enabled, but couldn't find it in the properties of the headset recording device

    • Answers
  • 8088

    I am unsure exactly what you mean, however, if you are saying that what you say in to your microphone is coming out of the speakers then do the following:

    1. Right click on the audio icon near the clock.
    2. Click "Recording Devices"
    3. Double click on your microphone Device.
    4. Click the "Listen" tab.
    5. make sure that "Listen to this device" is unchecked.

    alt text

    If you are saying that you want to edit the boost / sensitivity level, do the following:

    1. Right click on the audio icon near the clock.
    2. Click "Recording Devices"
    3. Double click on your microphone Device.
    4. Click the "Levels" tab.
    5. Move the sliders accordingly.

    alt text

    Lastly, if you are still having problems, you may want to try a combination of "Enhancements" such as "Noise Suppression". To do this:

    1. Right click on the audio icon near the clock.
    2. Click "Recording Devices"
    3. Double click on your microphone Device.
    4. Click the "Enhancements" tab.
    5. Tick the boxes accordingly.

    alt text


    • Related Question

    audio - Do I need a headset? Or can I use a microphone at the same time as my 5.1 speakers?
  • Domenic

    Basically, I'm concerned that if I use a microphone---or, the microphone function on a headset---the speaker-sound will feed back in to the microphone as well.

    Use case: playing computer games with friends. I want to communicate with voice, but I'd also like to get the immersive experience of my 5.1 speaker system. Music or sound effects will constantly be going on in the game, and I don't want to transmit those over the microphone---just my voice. Also important, when my friends' voices come out of the speakers, I don't want to transmit those either.

    So, do microphones these days do some kind of background-noise cancellation? Would a headset work better? (And if so, can I use it for only the voice function?) What about a Bluetooth thingy; would one of the products made for cell phones be good at noise cancellation?


    • Related Answers
  • Ron

    To eliminate echo from your side you have three options:

    1. Use headsets and DO NOT use your 5.1 speaker system - sorry.

    2. Use push-to-talk.

    3. Try using dedicated software to cancel the echo. There are several software products that can be installed. It is a very complex mathematical task but basically what they are doing is subtracting the audio coming out of the speaker from the audio entering in your mic. This is called AEC (Acoustic Echo Cancellation). You can google for it. I am personally using SoliCall Pro to do this task.

  • Sirex

    Usually this isn't a problem, particularly if you use push to talk rather than voice activated. Feedback may be an issue if you have the mic a long way away (and hence high levels on it to compensate), but i've used the mic from a cheap ($1) headset laying on my desk for the last few years after my old mic (a full studio boom mic) broke, and apart from a little less quality, there's no difference.

    Then again, if you have your speakers way loud, it may be an issue.

    edit: That said, a headset will do you better overall, but then you have to wear it just to chat to your mates when not gaming, so its swings and roundabouts.

  • RedGrittyBrick

    A headset will eliminate the possibility of feedback problems. Your friends may notice the benefit more than you do. Latency in the system may mean that your microphone feeds back to them a delayed echo of what they have just said. This can be very difficult to talk over.

  • AndrejaKo

    Here's an interesting point: Even the cheapest integrated sound cards today do things such as echo and noise cancellation. Many will even cancel all sounds coming from the computer, including fan noise. For example I have Realtek ALC268 on my laptop and have no problems with feedback and microphone is around 15 cm away from speakers.

    If your card doesn't have such features, you may want to consider getting one that does. Since you mention that you want immersive experience of your 5.1 speaker system, it would be a good idea to get a good card to go with speakers.

    Also, I had 5.1 setup in the era before there were sound cards with such fancy capabilities and I never had any problems with feedback, but the sound effects did go through.