5 ms·

Slack's audio quality is on par with GoToMeeting, I think. Of all the different solutions I've visited (Google Hangouts, Skype, Slack, Zoom, Join.me etc.), G2M

Slack's audio quality is on par with GoToMeeting, I think. Of all the different solutions I've visited (Google Hangouts, Skype, Slack, Zoom, Join.me etc.), G2M has been the most reliable and best-sounding one that I've found. It's got things like native Mac app, screen sharing (just one presenter, unfortunately), audio/video recording, telephone dial-in, calendar scheduling, and persistence (i.e. you can reuse the same meeting every day). It uses little bandwidth and behaves really well on a low-bandwidth connection. And unlike GH, we've never experienced any issues connecting or staying connected. The only thing I miss is the ability for it to pipe back a little bit of my own audio, the way I believe phones do, so that you can talk while wearing earbuds or a closed headset. (Without this, you won't hear your own voice, which I find too unnerving.)

Sebguer 10y ago
You can generally do this in your computer's sound settings by specifying that you want to listen to your recording device.
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  Not on macOS, I believe. According to the other commenter, this is called sidetone, and requires external hardware [1]. [1] https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/03/22/gotomeeting-audio-hardware-for-a-busy-office/ https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/03/22/gotomeeting-audio-ha...
  - rolodato 10y ago
    I believe you can use Loopback [1] for this (paid). If not, JACK [2] would certainly work but it's a bit of a hassle to get everything set up. [1] https://www.rogueamoeba.com/loopback/ https://www.rogueamoeba.com/loopback/ [2] http://www.jackosx.com/ http://www.jackosx.com/
    - j_s 10y ago
      I also have not tried it myself, but it appears the LineIn tool on their freebies page is exactly what is needed: https://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/ https://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/ hear the sound coming in through a microphone Edit: It is specifically called out in the Citrix blog referenced above as not working well enough. Not sure if the Loopback software would be any different, but it does offer a free trial.
      - lobster_johnson 10y ago
        The LineIn page says: > New in 2.3: A long-standing issue with latency in LineIn has finally been cured! We've also added a menu item for toggling play-thru. I'll try it out.
      - lobster_johnson 10y ago
        Ok, just tried it. There's definitely way too much latency to be usable.
dkresge 10y ago
For what it's worth, that little bit of audio feedback is called "sidetone".
3princip 10y ago
Not in my experience, we use G2M every day and Slack calls are much much clearer, we sometimes switch between the two and the difference is great.
douche 10y ago
I cry a little inside everytime I see that someone at work has scheduled a conference call using our terrible, terrible, expensive, 8x8 conference calling line instead of using the GotoMeeting audio. Especially when we are also already using the GotoMeeting for screensharing. Just being able to see which person in the meeting is speaking is enough to to choose G2M, even if the call quality and reliability wasn't vastly better.

Sebguer 10y ago

You can generally do this in your computer's sound settings by specifying that you want to listen to your recording device.

lobster_johnson 10y ago
Not on macOS, I believe. According to the other commenter, this is called sidetone, and requires external hardware [1]. [1] https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/03/22/gotomeeting-audio-hardware-for-a-busy-office/ https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/03/22/gotomeeting-audio-ha...
- rolodato 10y ago
  I believe you can use Loopback [1] for this (paid). If not, JACK [2] would certainly work but it's a bit of a hassle to get everything set up. [1] https://www.rogueamoeba.com/loopback/ https://www.rogueamoeba.com/loopback/ [2] http://www.jackosx.com/ http://www.jackosx.com/
  - j_s 10y ago
    I also have not tried it myself, but it appears the LineIn tool on their freebies page is exactly what is needed: https://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/ https://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/ hear the sound coming in through a microphone Edit: It is specifically called out in the Citrix blog referenced above as not working well enough. Not sure if the Loopback software would be any different, but it does offer a free trial.
    - lobster_johnson 10y ago
      The LineIn page says: > New in 2.3: A long-standing issue with latency in LineIn has finally been cured! We've also added a menu item for toggling play-thru. I'll try it out.
    - lobster_johnson 10y ago
      Ok, just tried it. There's definitely way too much latency to be usable.

dkresge 10y ago

For what it's worth, that little bit of audio feedback is called "sidetone".

3princip 10y ago

Not in my experience, we use G2M every day and Slack calls are much much clearer, we sometimes switch between the two and the difference is great.

douche 10y ago

I cry a little inside everytime I see that someone at work has scheduled a conference call using our terrible, terrible, expensive, 8x8 conference calling line instead of using the GotoMeeting audio. Especially when we are also already using the GotoMeeting for screensharing. Just being able to see which person in the meeting is speaking is enough to to choose G2M, even if the call quality and reliability wasn't vastly better.