I have some very soft-spoken coworkers who can’t be heard on conference calls unless they walk over to the laptop that’s running the meeting.
Thinking of getting an inexpensive mic (with a longish cord and/or Bluetooth) that we could just pass to whoever’s speaking.
Any recommendations on a mic suitable for this situation? Notes:
Budget: less than $50
We don’t control the conference room so something small/portable preferred to a “conference room speakerphone”
Preference for mic only (the MacBook speaker is fine for our small team, and if I’m going to spend $20, I’d rather get a $20 mic than a $10 mic with a $10 speaker)
I’m guessing a 3.5mm jack would also take over the MacBook’s sound output, so USB would probably be best.
Any recommendations? Or lessons learned if you’ve tried something similar?
Recent Reddit discussion thread that dovetails with your question here. Check it out.
If you get a cheap USB audio interface (like this $24 interface/cable) there’s a world of XLR handheld mics to choose from that can be in your price range.
The cheapest handheld USB mics I know of are from Audio-Technica but they have street prices of $65-$80.
Thanks @bowline. That could work although I think I’d opt for a simpler setup for the work situation. Might try it if I ever get into music recording at home though!
FWIW I posted in another forum and got back recommendations for the Jabra Speak series (410, 510, etc.). These do have a speaker built-in, which I wasn’t necessarily looking for, but a bunch of people jumped into that thread to say they love their 510s. The higher end ones (7xx) can even be daisy-chained for larger conference room settings.
Someone also recommended the Blue Yeti Snowball – it has 3 different mic settings, including an omnidirectional option, which could be good for a group situation. It’s not specifically designed for a conference situation so the person nearest the mic will be dramatically louder than people far away. (Possibly fixed by running through a compressor in Audio Hijack?) But the Snowball could be a good option for someone with multiple use cases.