Webinar Wire

Why I Hate Speakerphones

Posted by Ken Molay December 9 2008 2:15 PM EST

1 comment

One of my standard best practices for webinar delivery is to avoid speakerphones. And along with rehearsing every word of your presentation, this is one of the guidelines that I have the hardest time getting speakers to follow.

I get it... I really do. It's inconvenient and uncomfortable to hold a phone handset to your head for an hour. Not everyone has a quality headset attached to their phone. But let's look at the problems inherent in speakerphone use.

1) "Distant sound" - Unless you have a very expensive, high quality office speakerphone, your voice sounds separated and distant when it comes to your listeners. This increases the psychological disadvantage you already have in not sharing the same space with your audience. You need to create a communal feeling with your listeners, and the physical sound of your voice has a lot to do with that.

2) Volume variance - Again, a few expensive speakerphones have automatic volume gain, but the majority readily show changes in sound quality as you move towards and away from the microphone. They also pick up head movements, as your mouth faces the mike or angles away. This results in problems creating a consistent sound field for your audience.

3) Ambient noise - A speakerphone is designed to pick up sounds coming from all over an office. That means you have a much better chance of distracting your audience with sounds that undermine your speaking voice. Examples (all of which I have heard on actual web conferences) include: Fingers drumming on the table; Papers shuffling; Keyboard typing sounds; Dogs barking; Construction noises; Trucks backing up; Emergency sirens; Loudspeaker announcements; Chairs squeaking.

4) Low frequency response - This is a supplement to the previous item, but it serves as a special case reminder. I ran one event where the sound seemed all right on the phone as we were listening. When I played back the digital recording of the call however, I discovered low thumping booms overlaying the dialog. There was construction going on in the building, and the hammering percussion had traveled through the walls and floors, up the table legs, and into the base of the speakerphone. It was almost impossible to clean out of the recording, and detracted from the professional quality of the archive.

5) Cut outs - Many speakerphones employ one or two technical tricks to ensure a clean voice signal. These can backfire on you. The first is "half duplex" processing. That means the phone either listens or sends, but can't do both at once. So if another speaker starts talking, your voice cuts out. This can be very annoying on multi-panelist presentations, especially during a Q&A session when things get a little more unstructured. Admittedly, you don't find many modern phones operating in half duplex mode, but they still exist. The second symptom is more prevalent and has somewhat the same effect. A modern speakerphone may try to mask background noises by briefly blanking the noise and focusing on the near-field sound of your voice. The processing to do this is very quick - well under a second - but is still perceptible. Your audience hears little snips cut off the beginning of sentences or individual words. Each is minimal, but they subtly combine over time to give an impression of bad sound quality.

You may never hit these problems. Maybe you have a spectacular, high-priced office speakerphone and a quiet room with no background noises. But doesn't it make sense to remove the opportunities for trouble, rather than hoping they don't occur? The easiest way to do that is to stay away from the speakerphone.