Your hipper receptionist/presenter/pastor will now wear a little headset, often with a very small earphone, that has a long plastic tube that goes to the mouth. The tube does not have the actual microphone in it, but channels the pressure wave to the mic in the headset. What are these called? I can’t find a general term for these so I can shop them. Thanks.
I believe they are called lightweight headsets.
Here are some lightweight headsets from Motorola.
Boom headsets.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wireless-Mono-Bluetooth-Stereo-Headset-Headphone-Boom-Microphone-for-Skype-Chat-/230964988308?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35c6960994
Here is an example of the little plastic tube. Using “boom headset” I still get only one instance of this on ebay. What is the microphone / pickup style here?
the tube can be referred to as a ‘voice tube’.
In the case of my phone headset, it’s called a Plantronics Mirage with a clear voice tube.
AFAIK, the Mirage is the last and only model they make with a clear voice tube. Looks like the rest of their product lines put a mic at the end of the boom. Microphones have gotten tiny, so don’t be so sure there’s no mic at the end unless it’s a clear tube design.
When I worked at a large tech company doing A/V work, we called them “Countryman” mics, after the company that made the versions we used. We only used them if specifically requested by a presenter, because the pickup level was so much different that our normal lavalier mics, it was a pain to dial it in. IIRC, only the CEO really used it.
When I was looking for review for headsets with mics on CNET.com, I was going crazy trying to find the right terminology in search so as to get just headsets with mics and not just plain old headsets. I finally discovered I had to search for a ‘gaming headset.’
<sigh>
No, boom headset has the actual microphone at the end of the boom. The ones the OP is asking about have the microphone remotely located, with a voice tube to channel the voice to it.