Review of the Voice Tracker array microphone

A few weeks ago I decided to go ahead and order the Voice Tracker array microphone. It arrived in the mail, and it was one of those times like Christmas where you tear open the packaging and behold something shiny and new.

After doing some testing I can say that I'm very impressed with the technology. Acoustic Magic has done some very good work on this product, and I'm happy with my purchase. (My only regret is spending $50 more for the USB version: I was under the impression that it would mean a better analog-to-digital conversion, but in reality it's just a cheap dongle that most likely isn't any better than your sound card)

The first test I did was using the USB connector, which I figured would have the best quality. The results weren't very good: Only 75% accuracy with a command and control grammar from 12 feet away in the kitchen.

The next test I did was with the standard microphone Jack set at about a 15% input level. I arrived at this setting by using sound recorder and testing what the audio coming in at 12 feet sounded like, which even at 15% I felt was louder than the input that was coming in through the USB connector. (Even with the USB connector's volume set at 100%)

The results of the test was 92% accuracy, which is pretty good considering the distance.

The final test I did was setting the microphone input to about 30%. This resulted in only 1 error out of 40, for an accuracy of 97% from 12 feet, which I was extremely pleased with.

There were still some frustrations, such as it interpreting my saying "17" as "70" more often than not, but overall I can't complain. The other thing to realize is that I'm using XP's voice recognition, which is circa 2001, AKA SAPI 5.1. Perhaps if I were to repeat the test with SAPI 5.3 in Vista I would have more luck with the 17 VS 70 problems. My hope is that Windows 7 will include another update to SAPI, but only time will tell.

Anyway, I am extremely pleased with the results. Thank you Acoustic Magic!