asterisk users - Dec 2004 - SoftPhone on * with X-Lite or iaxComm (1 X100P card)

To all:

I am having an echo problem with X-Lite and iaxComm.  I am using the 
monitor speakers and  a desktop microphone. My problem is that the sound 
from the speakers is repeated by the microphone causing an echo that is 
annoying.  Is this correctable?  I have searched throught this archives 
and played with various settings but have not been able to fix this.  I 
have purchased a couple if different microphones that I thought may cure 
this problem,  but nothing changed. Is this just simply a bad chioce and 
I need to use a headset rather than an open speaker microphone setup?

Thanx,

Gary P.

PS: I am an * newbie, please go easy on me.
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Gerald J. Puhl wrote:
> I am having an echo problem with X-Lite and iaxComm.  I am using the 
> monitor speakers and  a desktop microphone. 
> Is this just simply a bad chioce and 
> I need to use a headset rather than an open speaker microphone setup?
Yes, you'd do better with a headset instead of speakers, while you're at
it you might want to consider a headset which has noise cancelling mic, 
they're not too much more ...

Gerald J. Puhl wrote:
> To all:
> 
> I am having an echo problem with X-Lite and iaxComm.  I am using the 
> monitor speakers and  a desktop microphone. My problem is that the sound 
> from the speakers is repeated by the microphone causing an echo that is 
> annoying.  Is this correctable?  I have searched throught this archives 
> and played with various settings but have not been able to fix this.  I 
> have purchased a couple if different microphones that I thought may cure 
> this problem,  but nothing changed. Is this just simply a bad chioce and 
> I need to use a headset rather than an open speaker microphone setup?
> 
Gerald,

What you're experiencing is a feedback loop, e.g: sound emanates from 
speakers -> picked up by microphone -> fed through speakers -> picked
up
by microphone -> repeat ad nauseum. It's nothing really specific to 
Asterisk or softphones, rather more of a natural audio phenomenon.

You can minimize the effect through a couple of means:

1. purchase a microphone that has a unidirectional polar pattern, which 
can reduce the amount of sound it picks up from sources physically 
behind itself;

2. reposition your mic and speakers in such a way that the mic picks up 
as little as possible from the speakers;

3. fiddle with the speaker volume and mic gain

#1 might be more costly than getting a cheap headset mic, while #2 and 
#3 would be too troublesome as it would involve a lot of trial and error 
and fudging around.

all in all you'd be better of getting the headset mic.

flynn