Current Location ：
Conference Room Audio: Speakerphones, Coverage, and the Rooms People Avoid
Every office has a room nobody books. The reason is rarely the furniture. It is that calls from that room are hard work: the far end cannot hear the person at the far end of the table, the speaker is too quiet for the room, and everyone spends the meeting repeating themselves. Audio quality is the single largest determinant of whether a meeting room is used, and it is decided by a handful of choices that are usually made from a catalogue rather than from the room.
Match the Device to the Room, Not the Budget Line
A speakerphone designed for a small huddle space will not cover a twelve-seat boardroom, no matter how it is positioned. Coverage depends on microphone reach, loudspeaker output, and the reverberation of the room. A device that is adequate for four people around a small table becomes a source of complaints in a room three times the size, and the complaint usually arrives as a general statement that the phone system is poor.
| Room type | Typical need | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Huddle, two to four people | Single compact device, close microphone | Device too far from speakers, echo |
| Small meeting room, six seats | Device with clear coverage of the table | Microphone at one end only |
| Boardroom, twelve or more | Multiple microphones or ceiling coverage | Single device, far seats inaudible |
| Training or divisible room | Zoned audio, possibly combined or split | Zones combined when the room is split |
| Open collaboration area | Individual headsets, not a shared speaker | Speakerphone in a shared space, everyone disturbed |
Acoustics Decide More Than Hardware
Hard floors, glass walls, and bare tables reflect sound. A room with a long reverberation time makes any device sound distant, and no amount of gain fixes it without introducing echo. Soft furnishings, a rug, wall panels, and table coverings all reduce reflection. Where a room cannot be treated, positioning matters more: keep the device away from reflective surfaces and keep the microphone closer to the people.
- Test in the actual room with the actual furniture before signing off
- Place the device centrally where the table allows, not in a corner
- Keep playback volume moderate; loud playback increases echo risk
- Treat the room before replacing the device for a second time
- Check that the room works for the remote participants, not only the local ones
The Details That Decide Adoption
A room also needs to be easy to start. A device that requires a specific cable, a particular account, or a dialling sequence nobody remembers will be bypassed in favour of a laptop on the table. Consistent behaviour across rooms matters more than individual excellence: if every room works the same way, people stop asking which room they booked and start asking whether the room is free.
Divisible and Multi-Purpose Rooms
Rooms that can be split need audio that follows the split. When partitions close, the combined device becomes two independent rooms with their own calls, and a design that assumed one device produces either an unusable half or a call broadcast into both. Zoned audio and clear switching logic cost more to design and less to operate than the alternative.
Redstone Approach
Redstone supports conferencing endpoints integrated with the IP-PBX platform, including analogue and IP conference devices suited to different room sizes. Our deployment reviews include an in-room audio check with remote participants, because the room sounds different to the people who are not in it.
Redstone Systems, Inc. founded in Delaware, USA in December 2002, has been the ODM vendor for many well-known communications companies, serving the Southeast Asian market. In 2020, Redstone Systems will begin to return to the North America market with its self-developed brand.
Redstone has a complete product line of intelligent voice gateways, providing IP-PBXs, analog VoIP gateways (FXS/FXO), digital VoIP gateways (E1/T1), border appliances, and session boundary controllers (SBCs).
With advanced technology in digital signal processor (DSP), speech coding and speech processing, as well as efficient operational tools such as cloud remote management, auto provisioning, Redstone gateways are widely used in markets of enterprise communications, cloud communications, call centers, operators’ IMS/SIP trunks, bringing users friendly, efficient and reliable communication experience.
For more information about Redstone, You can follow us on Facebook, Linkedin, and Youtube to be the first to get the latest news.
