And I'm sure that it's possible to make a throat mic that has great audio quality. But I think the overlap of "people who want throat mics" and "people who want good audio quality" consists solely of the author of this article.
And I'm sure that it's possible to make a throat mic that has great audio quality. But I think the overlap of "people who want throat mics" and "people who want good audio quality" consists solely of the author of this article.
The good audio quality I thought would come from it being viable in a "loud, high intensity situation". I thought quite simplistically that there must be something there if people are depending on throat mics in warzones.
To be clear though, the throat mic certainly has "good audio quality" -- I use it on most of my calls now, and I don't get any complaints -- tested with a friend beforehand and he didn't know the difference until I asked.
> And I'm sure that it's possible to make a throat mic that has great audio quality. But I think the overlap of "people who want throat mics" and "people who want good audio quality" consists solely of the author of this article.
Would sure like to find some more people (maybe ones that like to do kickstarters or have manufacturing connections) because I'd sure like to expand this niche!
In general, you'll get better sound from something like an Antlion mic with its passive rejection from a built-in omnidirectional mic opposite the cardiod mic pointed at your mouth.
https://vadosware.io/audio/hn-throat-mic-test.ogg
(also .mp3 and .mp4 are there, praise be to ffmpeg)
Which is about what I'd expect from a throat mic given how much of the human voice is produced above the throat. And for those who want a refresher, play around with Pink Trombone a bit: https://dood.al/pinktrombone/
A colorful and terrifying analogy, point taken!
> play around with Pink Trombone a bit: https://dood.al/pinktrombone/
Wow that’s is awesome
Thanks! :)
The reason they're used is because they're particularly good at rejecting background noise - so that you can hear someone over the sound of nearby gunfire. Throat mics are obviously right at the source of audio vibrations and aren't picking up vibrations from the air (at least not on purpose) so they have high ratio between signal (voice) and noise (unwanted background).
It's probably because people you are talking to are nice. It's a bit awkward to ask someone to invest a little in a better mic.
I did complain however to a colleague that his room is somehow generating a low-end feedback or standing wave. I measured the peak frequency and asked him to measure his room, but I couldn't confirm 100% if that's the reason :) Probably nobody else noticed it, it just annoyed me because I have studio monitors, I had to unplug them to understand him better.
If you are curious if it really has good audio quality, render a spectrogram of the throat mic and a professional podcasting mic and compare the image. The richer the image, the better it is.
Yeah that’s probably a large part of it.
> It's probably because people you are talking to are nice. It's a bit awkward to ask someone to invest a little in a better mic.
This is a great idea, thanks. I looked at some while I was testing (trying to figure out if the mic was working versus the built in laptop mic) but this would have been an easy way to compare
Also as many have noted, the sound quality isn’t the greatest!
I've only configured a handful of throat mics, but they actually are designed to be used when you're speaking at a whisper. That's one of the main features, you're not grabbing a handset and shouting into a directional microphone off your shoulder.
The very first time I watched the movie "Speed." I've wanted one ever since. Keanu Reeves made it look so "tacticool" it hurt.