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Comment by tjr225 | Hacker News Reader

Most laptops and phones already have a microphone or two.

You missed "rather terrible". The other day someone on our sales team did a presentation to the company, and they used the microphone on a $3 headset - I practically couldn't hear half the things they said because the audio was so muffled. This is someone who has calls with people all day!

If you record any audio or make calls with people outside your organisation, for the love of God, please invest in some sort of microphone upgrade. Even the $20 no-name Chinese microphones you get on Amazon are miles better than what is built into laptops.

While I agree with you get a better microphone. Buying Chinese crap is a lottery I bought my self a Chinese condenser microphone 60usd that thing is worse than my iPhone headset. My lesson when it comes to buying quality is to only buy name brand things.

> If you record any audio or make calls with people outside your organisation,

... please ask your employer to invest in some sort of microphone upgrade. Unless you're self-employed, paying for work equipment is not your responsibility.

Sound dampening as well. Fabric lined partitions, just sitting angled to walls, etc. $3 headset isn’t the end of the world by itself but capping at $3 total invested in setup is surely going to ruin the sound.

And if you're on desktop make sure to plug it in the right jack port. I spent 3 years wondering why all the mics I bought were garbage until I realized it was my front panel that was garbage and was messing up the signal.

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