Review on USB Speakerphone Conference Business Microphones by Amanda Gardner

Sound quality is decent, volume controls work well on Windows but cannot be controlled via buttons unless it's the default device on the Mac. The biggest problem is the echo cancellation. Its principle of operation is to reduce the sensitivity of the microphone depending on how much sound is passed through the speakers. This creates problems in meetings because I can't speak until there's complete silence on the other side. This is in stark contrast to "correct" echo cancellation, which takes the shape of the incoming signal and subtracts it from the shape of the outgoing signal, leaving the microphone's input sensitivity intact. That may be true, but since the mic and speakers are so close together, the echo cancellation needs to pull a lot of sound from the mic input and mute even moderate speaker output. The workaround for this is to keep the speaker volume as low as possible, but this still doesn't work in some cases.