REVIEW OF THE SENNHEISER HEADSET
By James Richards, Attorney At Law
The Sennheiser Headset, behind the head headband microphone, is an ideal match for speech recognition software. It is extremely lightweight, comfortable, and highly accurate, producing particularly clean, uncolored sound input.
The Sennheiser Headset is highly "noise canceling," virtually eliminating feedback and extraneous environmental noise. Designed as a close-talking microphone for live stage performers, and aerobics instructors in loud, noisy working environments, it is highly effective at rejecting far field sounds, providing speech recognition software with only the sound of your voice, uncolored by extraneous sounds. This greatly enhances speech recognition accuracy.
In my own testing, this microphone was extremely noise rejecting, behaving as a noise filter, effectively filtering out the sound of people talking just outside my office, and virtually ignoring the stereo music system in my office. Moreover, it cancels all transient environmental feedback, eliminating the reverberation one often experiences using a microphone in a small office with hard walls.This is especially important to doctors, lawyers, radiologists, and other professionals who dictate in small rooms with hard walls, or in narrow corridors. I think I could dictate in a shower stall without interference from such reverberation!
The headband is durable, and extremely comfortable. It consists of a simple rubber coated wire which hooks gently over both ears and goes around the back of the head. It terminates on both sides with a small rubber pad that presses gently against the temple. An elastic strap helps keep it in place, but can optionally be removed. This design completely eliminates pressure on the ears, which often causes discomfort for those who wear a headset for extended periods. While it is designed to place the microphone at the right corner of the mouth, it can optionally be worn upside down, placing the microphone at the left corner of the mouth.
No other microphone I have used in twelve years using speech recognition software has proven more comfortable, or less constricting during long dictation sessions.
The Sennheiser Headset produces a clean, uncolored sound, with a wide dynamic range ? better than even my previously favorite headset, the Shure VR250BT. This microphone is absolutely perfect for use with speech recognition software.
Optional Comment on cabling issues:
The Sennheiser Headset microphone comes with a relatively short, 5 foot-long cable, terminating in a three-pole 1/8" (3.5mm) mini plug with a locking ring designed to threaded onto the 1/8" jack built into a Sennheiser wireless microphone transmitter. On some sound cards, this locking ring could prevent the plug from making a good, solid contact within the input jack on the sound card or USB pod. Various solutions have been devised to prevent this, none of which are difficult to implement. eMicrophones, Inc. is making sure each unit is delivered using one of the methods to insure positive connectivity.