Getting the best sound from your headset
Whether you use a headset in an office, call centre or in a hybrid working solution, getting the best sound from your headset makes all the difference to your experience using your headset.
It’s important to remember that getting the best from your headset is about more than the user, the experience of the call recipient can be impacted too and we’re going to take a look at some of the factors which can improve your headset experience.
Who Can Your Headset Impact?
It’s always important to think about others as well as yourself when it comes to using a telephone headset in any environment. Beyond the user, headsets have an effect on the call recipient as we’ve already mentioned, but also those in the vicinity of the person using the headset.
Impacting the latter audience can lead to a spiral of noise in confined spaces when users aren’t getting the best from their headset too. A poor boom mic set up can lead to callers having to raise their voices to be heard for example, leading to those around having to turn up their headset volumes potentially risking hearing damage. Increases in noise levels can also be detrimental to concentration, this could also lead to a reduction in efficiency as we recently discussed in our post about the impact of noisy offices.
Improving Your Headset Sound
There are a number of factors which can impact the sound you get from the headset you choose to use with your phone, laptop or other devices. None of these factors will work in isolation to get the best headset listening experience, you need to consider everything you can control to get the best experience.
Whether you’re using an entry level headset or a more advanced bluetooth headset, they can all be impacted by environmental factors, controlling these is the key to getting the most from your wired telephone headset or wireless headset.
Key factors to consider in improving your headset sound:
- Background noise
- Headset fit
- Headset comfort
- Cable length
Background noise is perhaps the most obvious contributor to sound quality, everything from printers, to the general hustle and bustle that you hear. All of the noise that exists in an office can contribute to making it more difficult to get the best sound from your headset.
Where possible, try to reduce background noise in and around your working environment, this will make it easier to hear the audio from your headset without turning up the volume and risking ear damage.
Headset fit can also make a big difference to the impact of background noise and therefore sound quality. A well fitting headset will have a good seal round the users ears, increasing passive noise cancellation to improve headset sound.
If you’re struggling with your headset fit, consider a new ear cushion for your headset, our leatherette ear cushions offer great levels of padding to ensure user comfort and improved earpiece fit.
Not all comfort issues can be solved with a new ear cushion though and sometimes investing in a headband with increased cushioning may be required. If you’re using a JPL modular phone headset, changing the headband is quick and easy.
This flexibility comes into its own in providing changeable wearing styles, easily allowing our Element modular headsets to be changed from monaural to binaural and vice versa. This might seem like a small thing, but many headset users have a personal preference as to how they like to wear a headset. Enabling users to wear a headset how they want can impact their productivity as we’ve spoken about previously.
Cables can also cause sound issues, snagging cables can easily dislodge a headset during use causing discomfort. Even when there’s no snagging though, cables rubbing on other items can transmit noise into a headset, causing a distraction. Keeping cables free or even upgrading to a wireless headset can remove this issue all together.
Reducing Noise on a Headset Microphone
Getting the best from your headset also means thinking about the end user. A badly positioned microphone boom can seriously impact the quality of the audio pick up, resulting in difficulty hearing for the call recipient. We’ve all been on a call where we struggle to hear the caller, it really impacts our ability to hear and understand the topic of conversation, not ideal if it’s a sales call.
As with the listening experience, background noise can have a huge impact on what your headset microphone picks up. Headsets with active noise cancellation, such as the JPL Surround Shield™, will digitally remove some of this noise, but ensuring background noise is as low as it can be will always help.
If your headset doesn’t have active noise cancellation, consider using a windshield, a small foam cover for the headset microphone which will help to deaden some background noise.
Perhaps the most important thing you can do to improve audio for your listener is ensure you have your microphone positioned correctly. We covered this recently in our recent post about noise cancellation which you can read here. Correct positioning will ensure the best sound quality from your microphone.
Get Great Audio With JPL Headsets
JPL headsets come with a range of features at a great price point which will help your users to get the best sound experience from their headset. From wired headsets through to Bluetooth and DECT wireless models we’ve got a headset for every size and style of business.
Get in touch to find out more about our headset free trials too.
