Best headphone mics for video calls so people will think you’re smart

Better audio quality will certainly improve clarity and speech understanding for those on the other end of the call, and make you sound… smarter, writes Dr. Laura Sinnott

Results of a study by Norbert Schwarz (2018)* float around the marketing world with clickbait-able headlines warning us that the audio quality of your voice will influence how “smart” people judge you to be.

The subheadings report a 19% increase in how much better a talk was with high-quality audio. That sounds like a lot! Looking more closely at the data, of ten outcomes, “talk good” did average 0.93 points higher on a point scale from 1–5 (19% increase), but there was a much smaller difference of 0.33 in “speaker smart?” However, the headlines sneakily combine the 19% improvement with “smart” and “intelligent” Verba, so we must remember that research can be subtly (or boldly) contorted to grab more attention without technically being false, especially to lure the thumb to touch or pointer finger to click. e.g., percentages can feel more impactful than a regular, raw number, and though there was an increase in how “smart” viewers judged the speaker, it had the smallest difference of all the outcomes.

Intelligence judgments aside, we do know that better audio quality will certainly improve clarity and speech understanding for those on the other end of the call. It’s like reading my handwriting versus typed text.

Wired is the Way to Go

We have known that microphones built into WIRED cables sound much better than those built into WIRELESS headphones — even for wireless headphones that cost hundreds of dollars and claim to have “crystal clear” microphone quality. So if you’re going to be talking on your call, it is highly recommended to plug in a cable with a microphone rather than rely on the embedded microphone in the earpieces of wireless headphones/earphones. Most headphones do not come with a cable like this, so I was curious to know how the $11 cable from a Chinese manufacturer on Amazon (pink cable in the photo below) lines up with a more specialized cable, the ~$30 V-Moda Boom Pro (black cable). I also recorded my voice with the Apple Airpods Pro, the internal mic of my Macbook Air, and the cable that came with the Audeara headphones (again, it’s rare that headphones come with this cable, this was a bit of an anomaly).

Overall, the V-Moda Boom Pro does sound better than the pink Chinese generic cable. The Boom Pro has noise reduction built-in and is positioned perfectly in front of your mouth, so that makes sense. The Boom Pro X version (not tested here) has even more noise reduction and is advised for noisier rooms, but can sound artifact-y in quiet rooms. However, the cable that came with the Audeara headphones sounds as good as the Boom Pro when you hold it an inch away from your mouth. So for those on a super tight budget, or as a backup, the $11 cable is ok, and, well, who doesn’t want a hot pink cable?

Listen to the differences below. They are recordings of different microphones I made in a loud NYC cafe. Video coming soon with additional backgrounds and headphones. PS The noise reduction setting in zoom was set to “auto” which will affect the audio quality.

Mic Embedded in Audeara Headphones, Wireless Mode (No Cable)

$11 Generic (Pink) Cable from Amazon in a Cafe

Cable Included with Audeara Headphones in a Cafe

$30 V Moda Cable with Boom Mic in a Cafe

Airpods Pro in a Cafe

Internal Laptop Mic in a Cafe

*Newman, E. J., & Schwarz, N. (2018). Good sound, good research: How audio quality influences perceptions of the research and researcher. Science Communication, 40(2), 246–257.

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