The microphone matters less than people expect and more than they hope. A modern laptop microphone in a quiet room beats an expensive headset in a noisy one. But the wrong device — or the right device that your operating system silently switched away from — is the single most common cause of "recognition got worse".
Pick your input device
Open Settings → General → Input Device. You get:
- Automatic (system default) — Sprecho follows whatever your operating system currently treats as the default microphone.
- A specific device — Sprecho pins to that microphone and stays there.
The macOS menu-bar icon and the Windows tray icon also have a quick microphone picker, so you can switch without opening Settings.
Pin a device if you plug things in and out. On Automatic, connecting a webcam, a monitor with a built-in mic or a headset can move your system default without any visible sign, and your next dictation is recorded through whatever won.
If a pinned device is unplugged, Sprecho falls back to the system default and says so, so dictation never simply fails.
What each type of microphone is good at
| Device | Strengths | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in laptop mic | No setup, always there, surprisingly good in a quiet room | Picks up keyboard clatter and room echo; poor at more than an arm's length |
| Wired headset or earbuds with a boom | Consistent distance from your mouth, excellent in noise, the best value by far | Cheap ones can be muffled; keep the boom to the side of your mouth |
| USB desktop microphone | Very clear, comfortable for long sessions | Fixed position — you have to stay in front of it; picks up desk knocks |
| Audio interface with an XLR mic | The best raw quality available | Overkill for dictation; gain has to be set correctly or it clips |
| Bluetooth headset or earbuds | Wireless, convenient | See below — the real trade-off |
For most people, a €30 wired headset is the biggest single accuracy upgrade available, and it beats a €300 wireless one.
The Bluetooth caveat
Bluetooth headsets have to serve two directions on a shared radio link. The moment the microphone becomes active, the connection drops from the high-quality, output-only mode into a lower-bandwidth two-way mode. Two things follow:
- The recording is lower quality than the same headset's output would suggest.
- Any audio playing drops in quality too, sometimes audibly, for as long as the mic is live.
Sprecho handles the switch gracefully — it waits for the codec change to settle before it starts capturing — but it cannot conjure back the bandwidth. If accuracy matters more than cables, go wired.
What actually hurts accuracy
In rough order of impact:
- Distance. Beyond about 50 cm, the room contributes as much as you do. 15 to 30 cm is the sweet spot.
- Reverberation. A hard-surfaced room with no soft furnishings smears consonants. Even a rug or curtains help.
- Other voices. Background speech is the hardest interference of all, because it is exactly what the model is looking for.
- Steady noise — fans, air conditioning, traffic. Less damaging than speech, but it eats the quiet parts of your words.
- Popping and handling noise. Speak across the microphone, not into it, and do not hold a laptop while dictating.
Music, keyboard noise and a distant colleague are all far more damaging than the price of your microphone.
If Sprecho records nothing
| What you see | What it usually is |
|---|---|
| Recording bar appears, no level | Microphone permission is off for Sprecho |
| Level moves, "No speech detected" | Input gain is far too low, or you are too far from the mic |
| It worked before a reboot or a wake-from-sleep | The device changed. Reselect it under Settings → General → Input Device |
| Only the built-in mic ever gets used | Input Device is on Automatic and the system default did not follow your headset |
For macOS specifics see Microphone not working on macOS.