Podcast Audio Quality Comparison: The Good, The Bad, and The Compromise

How does a studio recording sound compared to a phone call? Or a pro remote platform compared to a video conference meeting? Volubility Podcasting delves into the different ways podcasts are recorded today: the good, the bad, and the compromises we make to ensure our clients' podcasts have professional quality audio while maintaining convenience for their remotely recorded guests.

Hello and welcome to Open to Influence. I’m your host, Charles Lipper, Founder and CEO of Volubility Podcasting in downtown Washington, DC. 

We occasionally get asked why an organization should work with an outside vendor to help produce their podcast. One typical answer is: to increase audio quality, which in-turn delivers the podcast’s messaging with maximum impact, and thus best engaging the audience and representing the organization’s brand. 

But what does quality audio actually sound like? Today we’re going to answer that question with a few examples. And to best tell the difference between these examples, we recommend listening to this podcast with headphones.

3 factors that influence podcast audio quality

Now, there are 3 primary factors you have to consider:

1)    The microphone,

2)    The sound of the room you’re recording in, and

3)    What you’re recording to.

The best audio scenario

For instance, right now, you are listening to me on a professional microphone in a professional recording studio being recorded locally to a computer. This is the very best quality we can achieve. But not everyone can get to a studio, so we have to introduce some factors that add convenience for podcast hosts and guests, but will diminish the sound quality that we record. For example…

The typical audio scenario

This is what it would sound like if you recorded on a cell phone over a cellular network in a typical living room. Sounds like a phone call, doesn’t it? You can hear every word I’m saying (assuming there are no cellular dropouts), but maybe it doesn’t present the best listening experience for your audience. Now you can get a pretty decent sound out of a cell phone if you know what you’re doing. It could sound…

The not-so-great compromise

… like this. Right now, I am recording in my walk-in closet, on a popular smartphone, using a recording app that allows me to bypass audio processing created by the phone itself. The clothes hanging around me help emulate the acoustics one would experience in a recording studio. I’m holding the phone up to my cheek as if it were a landline, so the mic is close to my mouth but without distortion. But, I’m recording locally to my phone, and most podcasts would typically involve an interview or discussion. And this recording solution doesn’t allow for remote connectivity. From here, most folks would assume to record over a popular video conference application. That sounds…

The bad

… like this. Does this sound familiar? Unfortunately, this is how most non-professionally produced podcasts are recorded: using a laptop mic, in a reverberant space like a living room, over a highly compressed remote recording platform. Super convenient for your guests, but not a very appealing sound for your audience. And just for comparison’s sake…

… this is how a popular wireless earbud would sound over the same video conference platform. Now, the range of human hearing goes up to 20,000 Hz, and the mic on these earphones filters out all frequencies above 5,000 Hz.  So you’ll notice these earbuds sound remarkably like a phone call, which is really their intended purpose in the first place. 

So, we at Volubility Podcasting take a number of measures, to ensure the highest quality audio with the best user experience for our clients and their guests. 

Let’s consider our 3 key factors again: microphone, environment, and recording solution. 

The best compromise

The first thing we do is ship all our hosts and guests a headset that allows for very high-quality audio that records all the way up to 20,000 Hz. And that sounds…

… like this. You are now hearing me on the headset we provide, back in the walk-in closet, over our professional remote recording platform. Now, we know it might be super awkward to ask your guests to hold a professional discussion, to be recorded for posterity, in a closet. Again, this is our recommendation so people sound their very best, but we understand it’s not always practical. 

So, this is what we can expect to hear from the headset, in the living room, over our professional remote recording platform. Good quality mic, but not the best sounding environment. Now we can apply processes to the audio to mitigate that, but every time we do so, it might degrade the quality of the audio a little bit. Just for reference…

This is what that would sound like. We’ve filtered out the HVAC noise and mitigated the acoustics of the room. Not too bad, right? So, between the high-quality headset microphone, our high-quality remote recording platform, and professional processing, we can make this, a remote recording, sound as close as possible… 

… to this, a studio recording. And we do other fun things like making sure all your participants are at the same volume both within the episode and across all your episodes. 

We’ll ensure your podcast sounds great

For more information on how Volubility Podcasting can achieve this kind of high-quality, impactful podcasting for your organization or clients, please email us at info@volubilitypodcasting.com. Thanks for listening!