USRobotics USR9610 USB Speakerphone Review

On the topside of the unit are two volume buttons, a microphone mute button, the speaker and a small blue and red LED to indicate the status of the microphone. On the front edge of the unit is a small grill for the microphone, and on the backside are two connectors for attaching the USB cable and an optional pair of headphones for private conversations.

Sound of the Seventies
While the CD comes with Skype 1.4, we thought it'd be best to use the latest stable version of Skype (v2.0.90 at the time of testing) since it features video conferencing and a plethora of other goodies. This was tested on two computers loading with Windows XP Professional SP2 using all the latest patches. Because the speakerphone does not have any custom drivers and is plug and play with Windows, I thought that setup would be rather easy. Oh, if only that were the case. Without additional configuration, my first few test calls sounded absolutely terrible. Incoming speech rattled the speaker even at 2/3 volume, recorded audio was choppy, and the microphone would constantly mute itself to the point where holding a conversation for more than a few seconds was impossible.

Instinctively, I turned off Skype's automatic device configuration to see if that would resolve any problems, but the problem lays deeper. You see, when you plug in the speakerphone, by default it enables Automatic Gain Control and Microphone pass-through to the speaker. The pass-through creates echo, and AGC over-compensates to the point where it mutes the microphone to eliminate it.

With the microphone pass-through disabled and AGC turned off, I did a few more test calls and found that my troubles with the USB Internet Speakerphone weren't quite vanquished yet. On the plus side, the microphone would no longer mute itself and I could hold a conversation, but I found that the recorded audio sounded excessively deep, with little tone to it. Also, recorded sounds were faint now that AGC was turned off which led me to start talking loudly like those people on a bus that live for their cell phones.

Hope for the Future?
Of course, at this point I was curious as to whether or not I simply received a defective unit. USRobotics was concerned at my findings, so they offered to send me another to test out. While the microphone's tone seemed slightly improved, the problems with AGC and pass-through remained, as did the rattling speaker at 2/3 volume.

After a quick conference call with USRobotics, I learned that I was the first reviewer to discover these problems, so as usual, your mileage may vary. However, they did encounter the problems once before, and will be taking a look at the speakerphone they sent to me to identify the cause of all these problems. What's more, they gave their official recommendations for operating the unit (AGC and pass-through off, Skype's auto-adjust on). Also, they have a settings configuration utility currently in the alpha stages of development that will be available on their website and eventually rolled out onto the installation CD to automatically adjust audio settings for optimum quality.

Recap
Overall the USB Internet Speakerphone wasn't anywhere close to meeting my expectations as an avid Skype user. While the design itself is great, the sound quality was terrible and the default microphone pass-through and AGC settings only added to the confusion. Still, USRobotics seemed heartily concerned with my woes and their vow to investigate the issue is encouraging to say the least. For now, try before you buy, and be sure to keep the receipt.