Meeting Room Audio: Why It Matters More Than Video and How to Fix It
The Three Audio Problems That Ruin Meetings
Before talking about equipment, it helps to understand what you're solving for. Nearly every audio complaint in a meeting room traces back to one of three problems:
1. Echo
Remote participants hear their own voice coming back to them with a slight delay. This happens when the speakers in the room play audio that gets picked up by the room's microphones and sent back to the remote side. It's disorienting and makes conversation difficult.
Cause: Missing or inadequate acoustic echo cancellation (AEC). The microphone and speaker are in the same acoustic space without processing to remove the feedback loop.
2. Poor Pickup
People at the far end of the table are quiet or inaudible. The microphone picks up some voices clearly and others barely at all. Remote participants hear some speakers loudly and others as a murmur.
Cause: Microphones that don't cover the full room, placed too far from some participants, or obstructed by laptops, monitors, or other objects on the table.
3. Background Noise
Air conditioning, traffic, conversations from the hallway, paper shuffling, keyboard clicks, coffee cups. All of it gets transmitted to remote participants. The room sounds noisy even when the in-room participants don't notice.
Cause: Room acoustics amplify background noise, or the microphone lacks noise suppression. Human ears filter background noise automatically. Microphones don't, unless they're specifically designed to.
Microphone Types and When to Use Each
Built-In Video Bar Microphones
Every modern video bar includes an integrated microphone array. These work well in rooms with up to 8 people where the bar is mounted within 3 to 4 metres of all participants.
Best for: Huddle rooms and small meeting rooms (up to 8 seats).
Limitation: Range. If your room seats more than 8 or has a table longer than 3 metres, the built-in microphone will struggle with voices at the far end.
Table Microphones
Standalone microphone pods placed on the table surface. They typically daisy-chain together to cover longer tables. Examples include Logitech Rally Mic Pods, Yealink CPW65, and Poly IP table microphones.
Best for: Medium meeting rooms (8–14 seats) where you need to extend microphone coverage beyond what a video bar provides.
Placement: Space them evenly along the centre of the table. Each pod typically covers a radius of 1.5 to 2.5 metres depending on the model. Avoid placing them near laptop fans, projectors, or air vents.
Limitation: They sit on the table, which means cables to manage and hardware that can be moved, unplugged, or knocked over. In rooms where the table is frequently reconfigured, table microphones need to be repositioned.
Ceiling Beamforming Microphone Arrays
These are the premium option. A ceiling-mounted array uses multiple microphone elements and digital signal processing to create focused "beams" that target individual speakers. They reject off-axis noise (air conditioning, side conversations) and pick up voices consistently regardless of where someone sits.
Leading products include:
Shure MXA920: industry standard for commercial meeting rooms
Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling 2: excellent noise rejection, TruVoicelift capability
Biamp Parlé TCM-XA: integrates with Biamp's Tesira DSP platform
ClearOne BMA 360: competitive pricing with solid performance
Yealink CM50: very competitive pricing with solid performance
Best for: Large meeting rooms (14+ seats), boardrooms, and any room where the table layout changes frequently.
Advantage: Nothing on the table. No cables to trip over, no hardware to move when the room is reconfigured. The microphone is invisible to users. They walk in and talk normally.
Limitation: Cost ($3,000 to $10,000 per unit) and installation complexity (ceiling mounting, cabling, DSP configuration). Requires professional installation and tuning.
Boundary Microphones
Flat, low-profile microphones placed on the table surface or mounted in the table itself. Less common in modern meeting rooms but still used in courtrooms, councils, and formal meeting environments where aesthetics and flush mounting matter.
Best for: Formal meeting spaces and rooms where microphone visibility should be minimal.
Speakers: Making Remote Voices Fill the Room
Microphone quality determines what remote participants hear. Speaker quality determines what in-room participants hear. Both matter equally.
Built-In Video Bar Speakers
Adequate for rooms up to about 30 square metres. In smaller huddle rooms and meeting rooms, the speakers built into modern video bars deliver clear, intelligible audio for remote participants' voices.
Supplementary Soundbar
For rooms where the video bar's built-in speakers aren't loud enough but a full ceiling speaker install isn't warranted. A dedicated soundbar mounted below the display adds volume and clarity. Useful in rooms with 10 to 16 seats.
Ceiling Speakers
The standard for boardrooms and large meeting rooms. Ceiling speakers distribute audio evenly across the room so remote voices are heard clearly from every seat, not just the seats near the display.
Ceiling speakers must be connected to a DSP or amplifier that handles volume control, equalisation, and acoustic echo cancellation. They should never be connected directly to a video bar's audio output. This bypasses AEC processing and will create echo.
Speaker placement guidance:
Position speakers so every seat is within 2 to 3 metres of at least one speaker
Avoid placing speakers directly above microphones (creates feedback risk)
Use the DSP to match speaker zones with microphone zones to maintain echo cancellation
Echo Cancellation: The Invisible Essential
Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC) is the processing that prevents the room's speakers from feeding audio back into the microphones. Without it, remote participants hear an echo of everything they say.
The rules:
Every audio path needs AEC. If a microphone can hear a speaker, there must be AEC processing between them.
Only one device should handle AEC. If both the video bar and an external DSP are running echo cancellation on the same audio, they interfere with each other and make things worse. Decide which device owns AEC and disable it everywhere else.
AEC has limits. In highly reverberant rooms (hard floors, glass walls, high ceilings), even good AEC struggles because the reflected sound is too complex to cancel cleanly. Acoustic treatment (panels, soft furnishings, carpet) reduces the load on AEC and improves results.
Common AEC mistakes:
Adding external speakers to a video bar without routing audio through the bar's AEC. Creates immediate echo
Connecting a laptop's speakers and microphone independently of the room system. Two separate AEC engines fighting each other
Using consumer-grade Bluetooth speakers in a meeting room. No AEC at all
Room Acoustics: Fix the Room Before You Fix the Equipment
The best microphone in the world can't fix a room that sounds like a bathroom. Before investing in audio equipment, assess the room's acoustics:
Problem indicators:
You can hear your voice reverberate when you clap in the room
Conversations sound hollow or echoey to the unaided ear
Remote participants consistently complain about audio quality despite working equipment
Practical fixes:
Ceiling: Acoustic ceiling tiles dramatically reduce reverberation. If the room has an exposed concrete or plasterboard ceiling, this is the single highest-impact improvement.
Walls: Acoustic panels on at least two walls absorb reflections. Prioritise the wall behind the main speaking positions and the wall opposite.
Floor: Carpet or large rugs absorb sound from foot traffic, chair movement, and table vibration. Hard floors reflect everything.
Soft furnishings: Upholstered chairs, curtains over glass walls, and fabric dividers all contribute to absorption.
You don't need to hire an acoustician for a standard meeting room. But if you're fitting out a boardroom where audio quality is critical, a basic acoustic assessment before equipment selection is worth the investment.
Audio Architecture by Room Size
Huddle (3-6)
Microphone - Video bar built-in
Speakers - Video bar built-in
AEC Handled By - Video bar
Approx Audio Cost - Included in video bar
Medium (6-12)
Microphone - Video bar + extension pods
Speakers - Video bar built-in or soundbar
AEC Handled By - Video bar
Approx Audio Cost - $500-$3000
Large (12-20)
Microphone - Ceiling array or multiple table pods
Speakers - Ceiling speakers + amplifier
AEC Handled By - External DSP
Approx Audio Cost - $5,000–$15,000
Boardroom (16-30)
Ceiling beamforming array
Ceiling speakers + amplifier
AEC Handled By - External DSP
Approx Audio Cost - $10,000–$25,000
Training (20–50+)
Microphone - Multiple ceiling arrays
Speakers - Zoned ceiling speakers
AEC Handled By - External DSP
Approx Audio Cost - $15,000–$40,000+
Testing Audio After Installation
Don't sign off on a meeting room installation until you've tested the audio properly:
Join a test call from a remote location. Have someone sit in every seat and speak at a normal volume. Can you hear every position clearly? Any seats that are quiet or muffled?
Test echo. Speak from the remote side and listen for your own voice coming back. If you hear even a faint echo, AEC needs adjustment.
Test noise rejection. Turn on the air conditioning, open the door to the hallway, and have someone type on a laptop. Does the microphone transmit these sounds to the remote side?
Test content sharing audio. Play a video with audio through the room system. Can the remote side hear it clearly without echo?
Test the "shuffling papers" scenario. Have someone shuffle papers or tap a pen near a table microphone. If it's clearly audible to the remote side, noise suppression needs tuning.
Need Help With Meeting Room Audio?
Audio is the part of meeting room technology where the difference between "good enough" and "done properly" is most apparent. We design, install and tune meeting room audio systems for rooms of every size, from huddle rooms with a simple video bar to boardrooms with ceiling arrays and DSP processing.
If your meeting rooms have audio problems, we can diagnose the issue and recommend the most cost-effective fix. Sometimes it's equipment. Sometimes it's acoustics. Often it's both.
Book a free room assessment. We'll evaluate your room audio and show you what needs to change.