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The most important thing for good sound is distance between the mic and your mouth - since SnR falls off with the square of distance. Some people use a standalo

The most important thing for good sound is distance between the mic and your mouth - since SnR falls off with the square of distance. Some people use a standalone mic mounted to an arm on the front of their desk, but I find that to be too intrusive and ugly. The ideal setup is a headphone with a boom mic. A lot of business conference headphones have a boom mic, as well as gaming headphones, but they all cheap out on the actual microphone element. For ideal sound quality you want to get a V-Moda BoomPro (wired, $20) or an Antlion ModMic Wireless ($140). These tack onto your existing headphones with a small magnetic clip (so you can take it off when not in a call). You can look up sound quality comparisons on YouTube, these two devices are far ahead of even the most expensive business/gaming headsets. It makes a vast difference in sound quality. The ModMic Wireless also works around the "Bluetooth sound quality is shit in headset mode" issue, since your headphones are in output-only (A2DP) mode and the ModMic has its own separate Bluetooth connection for mic-only. Finally, camera quality and lighting are important too. Here's a good article on lighting: https://languageoflight.blog/2020/10/08/time-zooms-by/ https://languageoflight.blog/2020/10/08/time-zooms-by/. For the camera you can use an actual camera (DSLR/mirrorless, ideally with a fast lens) with an HDMI capture card, there's plenty of info about this available on the internet. An old iPhone can also work quite well afaik? Either way, it'll be much better than a webcam, particularly if your room's lighting conditions aren't ideal.

tdeck 2y ago
What about lav mics? Are they a good option if you're willing to clip one on?
- the_pwner224 2y ago
  I think so, but I've never tried. I like to move around during calls so for me the ModMic Wireless + my existing Bluetooth headphones was the best option. I don't think there's any system out there that can beat the physical flexibility and ease of use of this setup. The ModMic comes with a tiny magnetic nub that adheres (permanently) onto the headphones. Then the ModMic itself snaps onto / off of that magnetic element, so it takes literally 2 seconds to take it on/off.
- LoganDark 2y ago
  Cheap ($10) lapel microphones from Amazon tend to have extremely acceptable sound quality for me. They tend to record even subsonic frequencies fairly well.
  - drdrey 2y ago
    why would you want to record subsonic frequencies?
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      recording the output of my transducer (bass shaker), for one. Of course it's only really perceptible to others with transducers or very good headphones, but having enough output to still sound good enough through a recording is a point of pride for me.
- sethhochberg 2y ago
  Lav mics and boom mics are great because they solve the problem so many other designs are trying hard to work around: distance from the speaker’s mouth to the transducer. An inexpensive omnidirectional lav can sound good for much less money and much more reliably than complicated software-steered mic arrays or even desktop mics with various pickup patterns can in the hands of an average consumer because the source audio, proportionally, is so much louder than any background or room noises due simply to distance. Because of the inverse-square law, every time you halve the distance between source and mic you get 4 times the acoustic power, so much better signal to noise ratio. Real situations exist where simply putting the microphone closer to the mouth isn’t good enough to solve the problem on its own, and that’s why stage microphones have those pickup patterns that reject more noise but require some technique to use. That’s not the reality for most people giving a presentation on their laptop, though.
boarnoah 2y ago
I am slowly coming around to the idea of desk mics, like you I detest the idea of it hanging in my peripheral vision on the desk or monitor arms etc... Even at the higher end of closed back headphones, there is a still a decent bit of noise leak. I've Had V-Moda mic in the past, as well as Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic headsets with boom mics. It usually isn't a problem with the relatively low volumes in a meeting, but any other time the noise leak is enough to get reliably picked up on recordings etc...
- the_pwner224 2y ago
  Ah yes. I never thought about that since I use closed-back headphones. (Bose 700 ANC)
Suppafly 2y ago
>You can look up sound quality comparisons on YouTube, these two devices are far ahead of even the most expensive business/gaming headsets. It makes a vast difference in sound quality. Assuming that's true, I'm not even sure I care. A halfway decent business or gaming headset sounds fine for Zoom or Teams, especially if it's wired to the audio jacks or has a usb connection. It's only the cheapest garbage that has problems. If you are doing audiobook narration or something sure, go for something better, but as long as you spend $50 or so you're fine for virtual meetings.
Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
> The ModMic Wireless also works around the "Bluetooth sound quality is shit in headset mode" issue, since your headphones are in output-only (A2DP) mode I will never understand for the life of me why the hell bi-directional high-quality audio over Bluetooth still isn't a thing, even in 2025. Bluetooth has MORE than enough bandwidth. 320 kbps output gives you damn near lossless quality, and just 128 kbps would be plenty for single-channel microphone audio, and honestly even just 64 kbps would be be fine. You would need at most 500 kbps. Bluetooth is capable of more than that. Even if there's no bidirectional high quality standard (HFP is bidirectional, but low quality), Bluetooth allows simultaneous logical connections of multiple profiles at the same time. Sure, your computer has an A2DP connection as the source to your headphones as a sink. Why can't a headset also open a second A2DP connection with itself as the source and the computer as the sink? It just doesn't make sense that a spec that's been around for what, 20 years has failed to keep up. I hate that as a gamer, I can't use the Bluetooth built into my motherboard to use a gaming headset if I want high quality audio. I have to get a headset with a proprietary dongle and then remember to bring it with me to LAN parties.
- ianburrell 2y ago
  Bluetooth 5 added audio for BLE called LE Audio with LC3 codec. BLE has higher (24 Mbps vs 1 Mbps) bandwidth than Bluetooth Classic. Bluetooth 5 headphones are available now. That would have been perfect time to update headsets. It sounds like A2DP can do backchannel now and there is Qualcomm proposed FastStream. But it isn't implemented widely and probably won't be until standardized.
iainctduncan 2y ago
Good point, what I use that is great at the desk is a gooseneck stand - SO much easier to move around while working than normal mic stand, you just bend it out of the way. Put one of those on a stand with a big circular weighted bottom and you're gold.

tdeck 2y ago

What about lav mics? Are they a good option if you're willing to clip one on?

the_pwner224 2y ago
I think so, but I've never tried. I like to move around during calls so for me the ModMic Wireless + my existing Bluetooth headphones was the best option. I don't think there's any system out there that can beat the physical flexibility and ease of use of this setup. The ModMic comes with a tiny magnetic nub that adheres (permanently) onto the headphones. Then the ModMic itself snaps onto / off of that magnetic element, so it takes literally 2 seconds to take it on/off.
LoganDark 2y ago
Cheap ($10) lapel microphones from Amazon tend to have extremely acceptable sound quality for me. They tend to record even subsonic frequencies fairly well.
- drdrey 2y ago
  why would you want to record subsonic frequencies?
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    recording the output of my transducer (bass shaker), for one. Of course it's only really perceptible to others with transducers or very good headphones, but having enough output to still sound good enough through a recording is a point of pride for me.
sethhochberg 2y ago
Lav mics and boom mics are great because they solve the problem so many other designs are trying hard to work around: distance from the speaker’s mouth to the transducer. An inexpensive omnidirectional lav can sound good for much less money and much more reliably than complicated software-steered mic arrays or even desktop mics with various pickup patterns can in the hands of an average consumer because the source audio, proportionally, is so much louder than any background or room noises due simply to distance. Because of the inverse-square law, every time you halve the distance between source and mic you get 4 times the acoustic power, so much better signal to noise ratio. Real situations exist where simply putting the microphone closer to the mouth isn’t good enough to solve the problem on its own, and that’s why stage microphones have those pickup patterns that reject more noise but require some technique to use. That’s not the reality for most people giving a presentation on their laptop, though.

boarnoah 2y ago

I am slowly coming around to the idea of desk mics, like you I detest the idea of it hanging in my peripheral vision on the desk or monitor arms etc... Even at the higher end of closed back headphones, there is a still a decent bit of noise leak. I've Had V-Moda mic in the past, as well as Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic headsets with boom mics. It usually isn't a problem with the relatively low volumes in a meeting, but any other time the noise leak is enough to get reliably picked up on recordings etc...

the_pwner224 2y ago
Ah yes. I never thought about that since I use closed-back headphones. (Bose 700 ANC)

Suppafly 2y ago

>You can look up sound quality comparisons on YouTube, these two devices are far ahead of even the most expensive business/gaming headsets. It makes a vast difference in sound quality. Assuming that's true, I'm not even sure I care. A halfway decent business or gaming headset sounds fine for Zoom or Teams, especially if it's wired to the audio jacks or has a usb connection. It's only the cheapest garbage that has problems. If you are doing audiobook narration or something sure, go for something better, but as long as you spend $50 or so you're fine for virtual meetings.

Sohcahtoa82 2y ago

> The ModMic Wireless also works around the "Bluetooth sound quality is shit in headset mode" issue, since your headphones are in output-only (A2DP) mode I will never understand for the life of me why the hell bi-directional high-quality audio over Bluetooth still isn't a thing, even in 2025. Bluetooth has MORE than enough bandwidth. 320 kbps output gives you damn near lossless quality, and just 128 kbps would be plenty for single-channel microphone audio, and honestly even just 64 kbps would be be fine. You would need at most 500 kbps. Bluetooth is capable of more than that. Even if there's no bidirectional high quality standard (HFP is bidirectional, but low quality), Bluetooth allows simultaneous logical connections of multiple profiles at the same time. Sure, your computer has an A2DP connection as the source to your headphones as a sink. Why can't a headset also open a second A2DP connection with itself as the source and the computer as the sink? It just doesn't make sense that a spec that's been around for what, 20 years has failed to keep up. I hate that as a gamer, I can't use the Bluetooth built into my motherboard to use a gaming headset if I want high quality audio. I have to get a headset with a proprietary dongle and then remember to bring it with me to LAN parties.

ianburrell 2y ago
Bluetooth 5 added audio for BLE called LE Audio with LC3 codec. BLE has higher (24 Mbps vs 1 Mbps) bandwidth than Bluetooth Classic. Bluetooth 5 headphones are available now. That would have been perfect time to update headsets. It sounds like A2DP can do backchannel now and there is Qualcomm proposed FastStream. But it isn't implemented widely and probably won't be until standardized.

iainctduncan 2y ago

Good point, what I use that is great at the desk is a gooseneck stand - SO much easier to move around while working than normal mic stand, you just bend it out of the way. Put one of those on a stand with a big circular weighted bottom and you're gold.