Environment

Nureva audio conferencing systems use Microphone Mist™ technology, which fills a room with virtual microphones so everyone can be heard everywhere in a meeting space. This allows remote callers to feel like they’re in the room during an audio conference meeting.  An important aspect of optimal performance is the environment that the system is operating within. The following describes the room environment that is required for good audio conferencing.

Ambient noise

For the human voice to be clear and understandable, the ambient noise in the room should be at least 20 dB lower than the speech. The noisier the room, the less intelligible the voice; the quieter the background noise, the more comprehensible the conversation. Based on average human speech being in the range of 60 to 65 dB SPL, this would mean that the room should have an ambient noise below 40–45 dBA.

Reverberation

Room reverberation is the measure of how reflective the surfaces are within a room. The more absorbing (less reflective) the surfaces are, the better the microphones will pick up the conversations in the room. Higher reverberation and reflections of speech will cause signal interference and more difficulty in understanding the conversation.

We recommend a reverberation time (RT60) between 0.25s and 0.6s.

Items such as glass, concrete, brick and cinder block are highly reflective and can cause high reverberation in a room, whereas carpet and ceiling tiles are more absorptive. Adding fabric acoustic paneling, on highly reflective surfaces will help with room reverberation.

Although Nureva’s Microphone Mist™ technology will work in highly reverberant rooms, optimal performance can be achieved by adding acoustic treatments (e.g., acoustic panels, diffusers) to the room to assist the audio quality.