We
found the new VXi Envoy produced very reasonable accuracy at 98% but because of
NaturallySpeaking accuracy gains and the doubled sampling rate of Ver. 11/12,
many microphones, that we would normally consider inferior, now produce very
reasonable accuracy. However, there is more to a good microphone than accuracy
in a vacuum.
We tested the VXi Envoy UC dual speaker model because it includes high fidelity
speakers. While that claim is technically true, we cannot recommend the stereo
Envoy UC for anything that might approach serious music listening. Accuracy was
acceptable and the unit works superbly with VoIP applications like Skype and
Microsoft's Lync, which opens automatically when you press the telephone
button. The built-in shielded USB soundcard is excellent and the unit even
drops the speaker volume level by 50% when making or receiving a call. You
can't argue about the price, style, versatility or manufacturer 2 year
warrantee but from a speech recognition point of view, we cannot recommend
it because the noise filtering was all but nonexistent. It appears that VXi
tried to compensate by eliminating the upper midrange, as you can see from the
following JPEG but from a practical point of view, it didn't work. The Envoy UC
microphone element is so sensitive, that it can even pick up breathing although
the optional windscreen helps. Accuracy also fell a bit below the VXi TalkPro UC1 microphone so for now, we
will be recommending other VXi USB microphones including the USB1-3 and UC1-3
models.
Tom Hamilton
Nuance Gold Certified & BBB Accredited
KnowBrainer Speech Recognition Forums
http://www.knowbrainer.com/forums/forum
KnowBrainer.com
http://www.knowbrainer.com
TheMicrophoneStore.com
http://www.themicrophonestore.com
support@knowbrainer.com
