#Best mac for business use software#
#Best mac for business use professional#

Call controls: I used the volume controls and mute buttons to see if they were easy to reach and use, because no one wants to be stuck scrambling to get out of those awkward “you’re muted” moments in Zoom calls.We ranked the headsets based on how heavy or tight they felt and how comfy the padding in the headband or cans was.

My teenage daughter (who has a smaller head than I do) also volunteered for comfort-assessment duty. Comfort: Since comfort is subjective, in addition to my notes on wearing the headsets for hours at a time, I had my husband (who has a larger head than I do and is more accustomed to wearing headphones all day) try each headset.And I listened to this amazingly immersive virtual barber-shop recording (video) to see how much detail the headsets picked up. (I played several Regina Spektor songs, since I know them so well, and since her large vocal range and orchestral arrangements are enough to give any set of headphones a solid workout.) I also listened while natural noise spiraled around me: train whistles, leaf blowers, planes flying overhead, and whatever my family was watching on television in the background. Noise-cancelling and speaker quality: In turn, I also listened for how clear others sounded to me while I wore the headsets and how much detail I could hear when listening to music on my computer or phone.

#Best mac for business use software#

In a previous round of testing, I also used the speech-to-text feature in Google Docs to evaluate how clearly my voice was picked up by the software generally speaking, the headsets all performed similarly, with about 98% accuracy, compared with about 90% accuracy for headphones. I looked in particular for how clear and crisp my voice was and whether the mic picked up too much background noise (such as a noisy air purifier, keyboard typing, or people talking in the background).

Microphone quality: Since call quality is paramount for an office headset, I made several vocal recordings to test microphone quality.

The vocal recordings from all of the headsets we tested sounded noticeably compressed (the range between the softest and loudest sounds is lessened, making the voice sound flatter) compared with what you get using an external microphone (which is what you should get if you need to record audio for podcasts or similarly polished recordings).

#Best mac for business use professional#

Just keep in mind that these headsets are designed for phone calls, not professional audio production. So if you’re currently using a set of regular mic-equipped earbuds or headphones for daily calls with colleagues or clients, upgrading to a headset can provide a tangible improvement in how well you’re heard and understood by people on the other end of the line. Every headset we tested, for example, did better in our speech-to-text dictation tests than our pick for best noise-cancelling headphones, the Bose 700. Headsets with boom mics significantly outperform earbuds and regular headphones with built-in mics in accurately capturing speech, as well.