Apparently I’ve a Radio 4 voice, as in it’s very clear and (apparently) very booming.

My OH has tried numerous headsets to try and find one where her mic doesn’t pick up everything I say (when I’m on a call also).

We work in the same room/area, but I’m almost 15′ away and facing the opposite direction and the room itself is actual 2 storeys tall and we’re on a balcony that winds around it. So its not like we’re on top of each other.

So any recs on a headset for her that has a mic that limits what it will pick up – ie just her voice?

Posted 2 weeks ago

Can you not play with her mic settings to cut out ambient noise?

Posted 2 weeks ago

I recently got one of these Sennheiser jobbies and my colleagues have reported favourable results even when I’m in a room full of people chatting reasonably loudly. I wanted to get one with a jack so I could also plug it into my phone, but there’s many more options with a USB plug instead.

Posted 2 weeks ago

You are seeking a headset to remove a voice in meetings. Teams and Zoom is great at eliminating angle grinders and low aeroplanes (both very pertinent to my meetings and tested with colleagues), but how does the algorithm know you’re not in the same meeting in the same room? Good luck. Plantronics are used in our open plan offices. They’re good. But in a smaller closed room you just need to attenuate your voice in your meetings. Or move to another room (more likely).

Posted 2 weeks ago

Can you not play with her mic settings to cut out ambient noise?

Unlikely, you’d need some very clever voice recognition algorithms, most just listen for a voice then mute the “silent” bits to filter out background noise. It can’t know the difference between your voice and the TV in the background though.

Does she have a headset with an actual boom for the mic or is it in the earpiece? The closer the mic is to your mouth the greater the difference in sound level between the voice you want to hear and one in the background. Bear in mind it’s a square relationship, so moving it from ~3″ away (ear) to 1″ (boom) is making it 9x louder (or rather, the background is 9x quieter).

Other than that, throw up some acoustic panels, or put up a divider between your desks to absorb some of the sound.

Posted 2 weeks ago

Does she have a headset with an actual boom for the mic or is it in the earpiece?

The one I linked reckons it’s got a noise cancelling mic, and I believe it because it’s got holes for a mic on either side of the end of the boom (so facing towards and away from me). Also because it seems to work for conversations as well as the standard background washing machine that Teams/Zoom/Google Meet can already handle.

Posted 2 weeks ago

+1 for what thisisnotaspoon says. Boom mic helps enormously over a mic by your ear. Anything soft will help with sound getting reflected around, and I rearranged our attic office so there’s a great big ikea kallax bookcase between my wife and I

Posted 2 weeks ago

Doesn’t look like USB throat mics are a thing – as others have said unless she has a desktop mic rather than one on a headset boom it’s difficult to see how your voice won’t get picked up (assuming you can’t talk more quietly on your calls…).

Posted 2 weeks ago

I have a Plantronic Voyager Focus.
It has a dual microphone setup where one mic is outwards for ambient noise and the other is by your mouth, and it combines the two to do some pretty nifty noise cancelling on the mic. I’ve used it in a busy office environment and it would only ever transmit my voice – even when I was talking it would completely cut out any other conversations even right behind me. Incredible thing, and I should hope so at that price.

Posted 2 weeks ago

Maybe put something sound deadening on the wall/in front of you. We have those ~4cm thick carpeted dividers between our desks at work that work quite well. You’d probably only need one or two of the bigger ones to do the job.

Posted 2 weeks ago

Probably a stupid question, but would these come with a crown race?

Posted 2 weeks ago

I had the same complaint from Mrs OTS – I now work in a different room at the other end of the house. Matrimonial harmony has been reestablished.

Posted 2 weeks ago

We are installing some soft boards and other sound deadening items in our meeting room. It is typical 1980’s concrete block room with window and door – any conversation in there just travels through walls and the internal window. I experimented last week by just bunging a load of soft things in there – the coat stand, large bean bag, a few tarpaulins. Almost silent… So worth looking at how the room is furnished?

Also – what about one of you renting a local hot desk etc? Our business park has a mixed office where anyone can rent shorter or long term desk space – it is very popular.

Posted 2 weeks ago

I use a Jabra 750, which seems good at picking me up and filtering out ‘not me’, but I’m sure this would work with 2 people in the same space together. My alternative is a Bose QC35, where at least she wouldn’t hear you any more, her colleagues may do though as the mic is integrated in the headphones.

Posted 2 weeks ago

Apparently I’ve a Radio 4 voice,

I’ve now got this image of you shouting ‘Humber, Forties, Viking, wind west 12 to 15 knots, rain…’ into your phone.

Posted 2 weeks ago

ha ha ha this is so our house.

The answer is of course my wife works upstairs in her study I work downstairs in mine. She still says she can still here me!

I alternate between a Jabra Speak 410 and Jabra Evolve headset.

In teams you have a noise suppression setting you can play around with as well.

Posted 2 weeks ago

Cheap wooden shed for her to work in would probably do the job.

Posted 2 weeks ago

If we’re talking teams calls here, unless she’s presenting it’s good etiquette to mute your own mic when not speaking, stops coffee slurping/biscuit crunching/loud other halves intruding into the meeting.

Start with the basics – I’d also make sure you’re both using headsets with boom mics – I find people who use the laptop speakers and mic tend to talk louder as the other people in the meeting are a long way away/also talking loudly whereas you can literally talk in a whisper and still be heard due to fancy auto mic volume stuff. Modern tech is very good 😉😁

Posted 2 weeks ago

Oh, someone is getting rid of a shed in the tip thread, wins all round.

Posted 2 weeks ago

Second the Plantronic Voyager Focus, sat in incredibly noisy offices and its worked brilliant. Only problem is I’ve got one of those voices that carries and hardly anyone else uses the same headset.

Posted 2 weeks ago

Thanks for the recs/comments and to clear up some stuff.

We’re both using ‘boom’ mics.
The room has a void between us to the ground floor, so a big volume.
Apparently her colleagues can her very clearly every word I say.

I’ll suggest the Plantronic Voyager Focus – ta.

Posted 1 week ago

it’s good etiquette to mute your own mic when not speaking

Pro tip, Teams has a push-to-talk function bound to ctrl-space. So you can stay muted and just hold down the keys when talking rather than constantly having to mute / unmute.

Posted 1 week ago

Talk quieter 👍🏼

Posted 1 week ago