> I'm curious as to why the author even thought that a throat mic would have good audio quality. Throat mics are designed for loud, high intensity situations. For the use case of a throat mic, "good audio quality" means the receiver can actually understand what you're saying, something that is pretty easy to achieve in a home office environment.

The good audio quality I thought would come from it being viable in a "loud, high intensity situation". I thought quite simplistically that there must be something there if people are depending on throat mics in warzones.

To be clear though, the throat mic certainly has "good audio quality" -- I use it on most of my calls now, and I don't get any complaints -- tested with a friend beforehand and he didn't know the difference until I asked.

> And I'm sure that it's possible to make a throat mic that has great audio quality. But I think the overlap of "people who want throat mics" and "people who want good audio quality" consists solely of the author of this article.

Would sure like to find some more people (maybe ones that like to do kickstarters or have manufacturing connections) because I'd sure like to expand this niche!

> I use it on most of my calls now, and I don't get any complaints

It's probably because people you are talking to are nice. It's a bit awkward to ask someone to invest a little in a better mic.

I did complain however to a colleague that his room is somehow generating a low-end feedback or standing wave. I measured the peak frequency and asked him to measure his room, but I couldn't confirm 100% if that's the reason :) Probably nobody else noticed it, it just annoyed me because I have studio monitors, I had to unplug them to understand him better.

If you are curious if it really has good audio quality, render a spectrogram of the throat mic and a professional podcasting mic and compare the image. The richer the image, the better it is.

> It's probably because people you are talking to are nice. It's a bit awkward to ask someone to invest a little in a better mic.

Yeah that’s probably a large part of it.

> It's probably because people you are talking to are nice. It's a bit awkward to ask someone to invest a little in a better mic.

This is a great idea, thanks. I looked at some while I was testing (trying to figure out if the mic was working versus the built in laptop mic) but this would have been an easy way to compare

I enjoyed your article. I think it is very in the spirit of hacking and science that you asked a question and then meticulously chopped away at it until you had a solution-shaped object. I have also been fascinated by throat-mics from e.g. cyberpunk novels. Have you also thought about bone conduction to replace headphones? That would be very cyberpunk :)

I have not, and now I have a new thing to look into, already firing up the browser tabs.

Thanks! :)

I have a pair of bone conducting audio 'headphones', aftershokz, and while I avoid using them for music listening, they handle voice audio really well and you still have full access to the sounds around you. I use them for calls and podcasts when I need to have situational awareness like biking or going for a run. I stress they are not for audiophiles for music though, the sound loses a lot of depth and richness. Caveat, the pair I have are 4+ years old and they likely have made improvements since then.

I got one too and found out that the audio isn't actually bad.... If you plug up your ears. Is kinda funny how much better it sounds from basically putting your fingers into your ears

> I thought would come from it being viable in a "loud, high intensity situation".

The reason they're used is because they're particularly good at rejecting background noise - so that you can hear someone over the sound of nearby gunfire. Throat mics are obviously right at the source of audio vibrations and aren't picking up vibrations from the air (at least not on purpose) so they have high ratio between signal (voice) and noise (unwanted background).

Could you provide samples? Maybe it works for you in particular, but all the throat mic tests I've seen on youtube have absolutely abysmal sound quality.

The position of the mic on your throat changes how it sounds. The further away from your throat, the better (more natural) the sound, but the more ambient noise you get because the signal is lower. If you're right over the throat, the noise issue goes away, but you lose the qualities of your voice that the mouth adds.

In general, you'll get better sound from something like an Antlion mic with its passive rejection from a built-in omnidirectional mic opposite the cardiod mic pointed at your mouth.

Hey the article has been updated with an example! Direct link below

https://vadosware.io/audio/hn-throat-mic-test.ogg

(also .mp3 and .mp4 are there, praise be to ffmpeg)

I would not call that good quality. To my ears it sounds like you're trapped in a mayonnaise jar with somebody eating cheetos.

Which is about what I'd expect from a throat mic given how much of the human voice is produced above the throat. And for those who want a refresher, play around with Pink Trombone a bit: https://dood.al/pinktrombone/

> I would not call that good quality. To my ears it sounds like you're trapped in a mayonnaise jar with somebody eating cheetos.

A colorful and terrifying analogy, point taken!

> play around with Pink Trombone a bit: https://dood.al/pinktrombone/

Wow that’s is awesome

I don't have much to contribute besides to say that I also run Arch and I also would love to use a high-quality throat mike. My use case is mostly for comms while riding eBikes, not office work. I have a Blue Snowball that I use for voice chat in my quiet, personal home office.

Mentioned this before but be careful to find one that snaps off easily if you’re using it on a bike just in case it gets caught on something! I guess it would be fine if it wasn’t fully closed

Also as many have noted, the sound quality isn’t the greatest!

> Throat mics are designed for loud, high intensity situations. For the use case of a throat mic, "good audio quality" means the receiver can actually understand what you're saying, something that is pretty easy to achieve in a home office environment.

I've only configured a handful of throat mics, but they actually are designed to be used when you're speaking at a whisper. That's one of the main features, you're not grabbing a handset and shouting into a directional microphone off your shoulder.

Isn't it basically the same situation from a signal processing point of view? i.e. the SNR is bad but you can localize and pull out signal.

Well, they're physically adjustable. iirc there's two mics and you can move them closer or farther away from your throat, which has an affect on what's picked up. The Harris radios also support a load of customizations to input, but it would be a real drag doing this because no team or squad has dedicated radios, and the shop ROs are likely defaulting the radio before configuring it.

Ours could not pick up whispering.

I liked his "I don’t remember exactly when the thought first snuck into my head," comment, because I know exactly when the thought snuck into my head.

The very first time I watched the movie "Speed." I've wanted one ever since. Keanu Reeves made it look so "tacticool" it hurt.

Tears of the Sun for me. Bruce Willis and his unit made them seem absolutely badass.

But have you considered all the possible markets? The adult movie industry for example, a spearhead when it comes to new technology..