Using Kurzweil Voice with a mic gain range of 0-9.
The ESS notebook soundcard was very popular in the UK a year ago -
particularly on the cheaper models. It had a high internal noise level and
was hard to set up optimally. A gain of four was about the best average but
the background noise was still high. Recognition was average.
Some notebooks needed the gain set on zero OR the Kurzweil slider had to be
disabled and the sound card software slider set to about 4% - very fiddly.
Other notebooks were partcularly difficult to set up and never worked well.
The ESS has been widely replaced by the Yamaha. Providing Mic, CD and 16bit
have all been selected and Boost OFF and AGC OFF, it's a lot better and I
find the recognition excellent.
The notebook we use is the DUAL AIO (which we can supply). I use a P200 with
64MB. I like everything about the notebook so, when we sell a whole system,
that's what we recommend. And we use them ourselves.
We do a lot of exhibitions and, although we use our own mics (Talk Mics) we
can always demonstrate in very noisy surroundings. We couldn't do this with
the ESS, nor with a Shure, a VXI, or an Andrea. In fact, demos by other
comnpanies were often erratic and demonstrators always blamed the noise.
Many of them use our mics now but, generally, Dragon and IBM dealers seem to
have a genetic blank about Kurzweil and obstinately refuse to give it any
credit. Or use our mics - probably because the'yre fairly cheap and there's
not a lot of profit unless you're concerned about doing the best for your
customers. For example (remember we have a 17.5% tax to add) one dealer
sells the VXI for 75 (UK pounds) and the Shure for 152. The Talk Mic is 39
because we buy in quantity and keep the costs down to dealers and users.
I'm not saying the Talk Mic is the definitive mic - technology isn't like
that. BUT around 65% of our customers end up buying a better mic that those
that ship with the VR systems.
Regards
Rob
Talking Technologies Limited
34A Glazbury Road
London
W14 9AS
talk@@easynet.co.uk
http://www.talk-systems.com/
vox 0171 602 4107 fax 0171 603 2109
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