For systems where the captured sound is used by algorithms, the goals for sound quality may differ from those intended for the human ear.
As long as the microphone signal is optimized for the algorithm, it doesn't necessarily need to sound natural to humans.
Regardless of the use case, it is always essential for the microphone capsule to maintain a clean, interference-free signal without distortion or noise.
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)
ASR, or Automatic Speech Recognition, is the task of automatically converting speech signals into written text.
So far, transcription accuracy approaching human-level (~95%) is achievable only under good environmental conditions, typically in laboratories.
In real-world and far-field scenarios, speech recognition involves significant acoustic challenges such as background noise, reverberation, echo cancellation, and microphone placement.
High-Quality Microphones for Speech Recognition
A good speech recognition engine alone is not enough-every component in the system must operate at a high standard to avoid becoming a bottleneck.
The role of the microphone capsule is to provide the best possible input signal for the ASR system.
Higher input signal quality helps the ASR system analyze the incoming audio and identify features that reveal the speech content.
Key microphone capsule parameters include noise, distortion, frequency response, and phase.
