Quest 3’s microphone has the identical popping drawback as Quest Professional – a difficulty that is not current in Quest 2.
Quest 3 and Quest Professional have a a lot thinner visor than Quest 2, due to using pancake lenses which require a shorter hole between them and the show panels. That is advantageous for design and ergonomics, however could also be contributing to a microphone high quality concern.
The thinness means your mouth is far nearer to the headset, and thus the microphones, in comparison with Quest 2. On Quest 3, there appears to be a bassy distorted sound when air blasts out of your mouth hit its microphone. The proximity impact means the nearer you might be to the microphone the extra low frequencies will likely be amplified, and this impact appears to be leaving Meta’s newest VR headsets with a “plosives” drawback.
P sounds are the commonest plosive, generally known as “p-pops”, however this jarring additionally occurs with T, Ok, D, G, and B noises to a lesser diploma.
We initially observed this concern in Quest Professional on our weekly VR Obtain podcast a 12 months in the past, and it was distracting sufficient for our listeners that I reverted to utilizing Quest 2.
In final week’s episode, I began utilizing Quest 3 on its launch day, hoping that the difficulty wouldn’t be current. As a substitute, we had been dissatisfied to find one other new Meta headset has precisely the identical concern. Hearken to the above comparability of the microphone on Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Professional.
We aren’t the one ones to note Quest 3’s microphone high quality. YouTuber Mike Cussell, referred to as VROasis, posted his own comparison to Xexhibiting that this concern really is not current on different slim pancake lens headsets similar to HTC’s Vive XR Elite and Bigscreen Past.
YouTuber Brad Lynch, referred to as SadlyItsBradley, additionally expressed his disappointment with Quest 3’s microphone, whereas Cezary Sobociński of XRDailyNews called it “an absolute piece of dogshit”.
Meta might be able to enhance the standard of Quest 3’s microphone in software program, even perhaps by utilizing machine studying to filter out the popping, as in style communication platforms together with Discord, FaceTime, and Google Meet now do.
Quest Professional is marketed for conferences and but nothing was performed about the issue there. So will Quest 3 get a repair for this?
We aren’t holding our breath.
