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Barbara Murphy photo
Switzerland, Bern
1 Level
457 Review
0 Karma

Review on ๐Ÿ”Š VTech VCS855 Wireless Conference Speakerphone with DECT USB Dongle for Home Office: Secured HD Voice, Full Duplex, 25M Range, Portable (Optional Rechargeable Battery), Ideal for up to 8 People by Barbara Murphy

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Terrible microphone, great speaker.

I agree with the Purna reviewer: the speaker sounds great, the mic doesn't work. (Did I get it back?) There are two mics, front and back. The front is very dark, there doesn't seem to be any frequencies above 2 kHz. The rear sounds bright enough (7kHz?), but quiet. Also, the front one obviously has a gate, but the back one doesn't, which is very strange. I think instead of building a complicated DSP to mix the sound from two mics, they should have had different equalization, gain cut and front mic gate. The result is practically unusable for any conference call. I would expect the two mics to be cardioid, together creating an omnidirectional pickup pattern. Instead there is more directionality on the sides and noticeably quieter zones, the pattern more closely resembles a figure eight with dead zones on the sides. There aren't two points around this thing that would capture the pickup's tone with the same quality. The front tones are dull, muffled and bass-heavy, the rear ones are bright and tinny. Speaking 1 foot from behind is the only viable microphone sound. The rear microphone picks up power line hum, the closer your hand is to it, the more hum. No shielding, right? The mute switch picks up a confirmation tone and an odd interruption heard by people on the other side. If you just want one speaker then that's great, the speaker sound is really good. Almost good for music. And one more thing: This thing is more massive, bigger, taller and heavier than Polycom. Next to the first picture is a key that should be fairly compact. Check the second picture, it is a more accurate size relationship between the device and the USB dongle. It looks solid as a capital equipment on any desk. I thought it would be smaller and fit nicely on a computer desk. The power supply cord is about 15 feet long.

Pros
  • Great Price
Cons
  • Looks