Since working from home and my kids having school from home started, I bought a headset which I had hoped would keep out background noise from my kids when I’m on a web meeting. However, after trying it in some meetings with my kids full-blast in the background, it seems that the problem is only slightly reduced at best. Does anyone have any good recommendations for a headset that plugs into a Windows 10 PC with a microphone that will do the best job of focusing on the output of my mouth to the exclusion of other noise in the background?
(I tried reading through reviews on Amazon and similar web sites, but reviewers focus on many different factors, like audio quality and comfort. While I’m at least somewhat interested in those, I can’t seem to effectively find the reviews which focus on this aspect. Ironically, I’m finding it hard to filter out the background noise, so to speak.)
Thanks
I have a set of Bose active NR earbuds and my son has a pair of Sony over the ear active NR headphones. Both work fine to cut ambient background noise down, but we find the same as you, they don’t suppress irregular background noise very well.
I reco. what my son does when he really needs quiet if he’s editing videos etc - he uses my NR Bose earbuds and then wears his Sonys over top (but turned off). The combo of active NR with passive over the ear works very well.
Find a well reviewed pair of NR ear buds (with a good microphone) and combine them with a basic over the ear noise reduction ear muffs like these from HD:
My Bose are good but were expensive (a treasured gift and I never fly without them), but they’re a few years old now and there may be better ear buds for less money these days.
I think you might have misunderstood. I’m looking for what will best suppress the noise to my mic, not necessarily to my ears. But thank you for the suggestion.
I recently got a pair of the new Bose 700 headphones and the microphone is a world of difference from my old QC 35’s. With QC35’s the microphones were too good, they picked up every sound around you. The new Bose 700 microphone has adjustable sensitivity, so you can be in an airport or a coffee shop and not pick up all the extraneous noise.
A rather ridiculously complicated approach would be to use two microphones wired with reverse polarity to each other. You talk into one, and any ambient sound that is picked up by both mikes is canceled. (This is the system used in the Grateful Dead’s infamous Wall of Sound to prevent feedback.) I don’t know if any commercial products use such a system.
I’ve used Jabra headsets in the past and they do a great job at sound isolation. https://www.jabra.com/business/office-headsets
Consider looking at the sort of headsets that pilots use. Take a look at the headsets on-line at Sporty’s Pilot Shot – Headsets (ETA – Not sure if there are models of these that fit with a Windows PC, or any desktop PC.)
(ETA – Scroll down a ways. There’s even ear muffs for dogs.)