🎤 How to Improve Audio Quality in Microsoft Teams

Your microphone can greatly impact your audio quality on Microsoft Teams. Find out which one performs the best and which one gives you the most value for the biggest quality improvement.

👋 Microphones featured / mentioned in this video:

⌚ Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
2:13 Laptop microphone
2:39 Bose wireless headphones with mic
3:11 Rode NT-USB Mini
3:50 Rode NT-USB
4:16 Sennheiser MKH 50
5:03 Back-to-back comparison
5:20 My thoughts
7:02 Wrap up

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[JCLarsen]

Sorry to say - I just participated in 3 days of learning with 20 other people in Zoom. Today I participated in a board meeting with 20 people for an hour. I had the best experience in Zoom. Soundquality and ease of use was way better in Zoom. When accidently 2 people speak at the same time in Zoom it was understandable - but in Teams it becomes "blurry". Don't get me wrong - I don't hate Teams - I just wonder why a top dollar firm like microsoft can't make a state of the art program with all that money they got.
The only sound adjustment in Teams is turning a filter on a little or a lot or off!!! And it only picks up channel one of my Focusrite. How on earth am I expected to work with that? I just wonder!
BUT Kevin keep up the good work - I learn so much from your videos.

[polluxtroy]

This is by far hands down THE BEST review on scenarios using External Mics for conference. When looking for reviews, all the reviews sampled the original audio, which of course sounds good, but none of these reviews included how would they sound when MS teams compress it and plays it back.

One minor ask if I might, in your opinion which one of the bunch would cancel background noise the best?

[bluebee]

This is the kind of microphone test that I have been looking for! I hope you can test affordable mics in the future! Thanks, Kevin!

[steveliberty]

In my home office, the laptop mike is not an option, as I keep my laptop closed, using an external monitor, etc. I used to use the mic in my Logitech webcam, but it sounded too boxy and there was too much room ambience. I've since switched to a $60 USB mic (Fifine), and the improvement was immense. The mic pattern rejects most sounds coming from anywhere other than right in front (like most condenser mics will), and the overall eq is balanced pretty well. As you pointed out, for not too much money, you can make really big improvements. And you don't have to go with big well known brands. Rode makes great stuff, but I suspect that my Fifine is 90% as good for almost half the price.

[SavageGothamChess]

Wow. This video is amazing. In my opinion I think the RODE NT-USB was the best when coming to audio quality. I need to get one right away. 5:10 to 5:22 made me laugh a little bit. Great video.
Side note - Congrats on 550K.

[TylerStanczak]

This is so crucial to have. Thank you for providing this much needed tutorial. If everyone at my work had a rhode microphone that would be epic! :)

[AK-nbhz]

There's also a comment to be made about background nose. A pair of apple wired earpods are actually amongst one of the best input sources, and that's against professional studio mics at $5000. I'm not saying the two compare in other environments, but in teams, there's little justification to spend more. Close micing will remove background echo and AC noise etc so it's worth looking at as an option.

[ManishMoothedath]

The Rode NT USB mini sounded the best for me. Great video again Kevin!!

[justingould]

This is the best review I’ve found for WFH setups. There are a lot of mic comparisons, but few that run the audio through teams. Would love to hear the Rode NTG Go II, a newer $100 option run through this test.

[Underhills]

Don't want a big table mic or a chunky gamer headset+mic. As a matter of fact I just want better mic audio in conference calls - without having to look like mickey mouse or the hassle of setting up a separate mic. I have no space for that anyhow. I think a lavalier mic is for me. Guess the search continuous. Perhaps you could do a similar test for lav mics? Your production is stellar. Thanks.

[prokorshopal]

0:02 - Hi Kevin! 👋
7:16 - 344th thumbs up from me! 👍
7:30 - Enjoyed it as always! ☺️ Bye and cheers!

[JustBlankNoInfo]

OG's know you're a legend! A man in a lifetime! Hat's off Kevin! Tysm! Helps a lot in meetings

[SrikanthPRABHA]

I’m binge watching all your videos. Already seeing a 10x improvement 🙏

[jonathanwking]

So one important point to make about the Bose headphones is that, although the mic is not fantastic, where you are losing the most here is in Windows 10’s handling of Bluetooth headsets, where you can currently choose to get decent input audio quality but not acceptable outport audio quality because of the way that Windows currently handles Bluetooth profiles...which is sub-optimally, which you can prove to yourself and others by running the same headphones (or, say, Airpods) through an Android or iOS of MacOS device that handle the inevitable trade-off differently and, at least for conference calls like these, much more effectively. So at the moment, you are kind of stuck if you are in wireless land unless you can get a headset that has a specialized USB dongle (e.g., some of the Jabra headsets), in which case you can definitely get better quality. A workaround here (especially if you have AirPods) is to run your audio (or your audio and video) through Teams on an iOS device and then log onto the same meeting on Windows to get a bigger screen and more features on the platform. Another solution is to accept that you’ll be “wired” to your PC during a Teams call at your desk because of your mic, but use an iOS or Android device for teams when you can’t stay at your desk. In a year or three, we’ll probably have much better solutions here, but so it goes.

[mbettencourt]

This was a great if brief run-through of microphone use for Teams. It would be nice to do something similar for those are looking for a good podcast microphone.

[JustBlankNoInfo]

It doesn't matter if I was first or second but I just click when I see a video from Kevin! I never care about the title or description! The thing is you make my day happy whenever I see your video as Ik I am going to learn something

[gajabathiarjuntg]

Thanks Kevin. I have understand that as the money increases the quality also increases. So Thanks again Kevin the quality in Sennheiser MKH 50 microphone has the best quality. :)

[Appetiteforbusiness]

There's so many different options available these days. Thanks for your insight!

[philnewman]

Microsoft needs to fix the sound processing -- that's clear from that video! IMO there was not a meaningful difference of the three "good" mics after the sound went through Teams.

[UkuleleBobbyKemp]

Hey, great video/comparison test Kevin. ...Yes, I totally agree - the *Leap* in quality with the Rode Mini makes it the wise choice, unless you have a big budget. 🙏 Tnxalot, Bobby 👏👏