Andrea Communications C1-1021450-100 USB-SA External Digital USB Sound Card with Array2S Microphone Bundle

Awesome Freedom from Wires and Headsets for Dragon!!
This combo is Awsome. I’m running it on Windows 7 64 Bit System with 8gb Memory.I’ve used it both in Windows 7 and in XP Mode.Andrea has the latest drivers on website so if you are on Windows 7 64 bit don’t bother with what is in the package.One note of caution, Andrea comes with a utility that will adjust the microphone volume, use that in conjunction with Dragon. The Andrea utility will adjust the DB level to make sure that you are at an optimal level.Anyway I bought this because my XP mode was giving me flaky results for Dragon 11.The Array microphone also caught my fancy. The idea of being able to dictate into dragon without a headset was very intriguing. I was skeptical that it would work but seems that Andrea knows Dragon!!The results I’m getting from the Array mic mounted on my monitor at around 3 feet matches any microphone setup I’ve ever had. No more double headsets at work!! Freedom from wires and headsets. It’s great. I should mention that it won’t work right without the Andrea Software. As an experiment I used it as a USB device without the Andrea utilities and neither the Array Mic or my Plantronics unit were good enough for Dragon. Installed Andrea Software and got amazing results.BTW it works with my normal Plantronics Noise cancelling microphone too.I haven’t used the speaker output yet but you can set it to use Mic for input and your normal soundcard for output.It worked fine in XP mode which only has 2gb of ram so I believe that it’s fairly low overhead for the system.

The Andrea S2 SuperBeam Works Reasonably Well But Is Certainly Not the Very Best Microphone Ever For Dragon
Works OK. Not the greatest Dragon Naturally Speaking microphone in the world. My point of reference is that years ago I paid several hundred dollars for a Shure T1G-V “guitar vocalist” wireless microphone (no longer made). The Shure works great with Dragon. The Andrea S2 SuperBeam by comparison is just OK, quite workable but definitely a step down in voice recognition capability. It’s main advantage is NO headset to don or remove. Just talk to your computer anytime. Factors that make it less than ideal are that my voice is 2 feet away from the mikes, not right next to a mike as with the Shure and the noisy fan of my laptop is about the same distance away from the Andrea mikes that I’ve mounted on the top of a very large 27-inch Dell monitor. In addition, I’m working at a desk in my kitchen and there’s refrigerator noise, HVAC noise, etc. (I’ve turned on noise cancellation and Beam Forming in the Andrea Audio Commander software). A lot of the time when dictating, I’m looking down at something I’m holding in my hand or at the bottom of the monitor screen, so that also detracts from recognition accuracy.When setting the Andrea up with the USB Andrea sound card, you really have to look at the Windows sound properties carefully. After inserting the Andrea USB card, Windows still wanted to use the motherboard sound recording pathway and I had to disable that to get the pathway through the Andrea sound card enabled. Once I did that, Dragon set up a new microphone profile for me and I think any user would find it worthwhile to go through at least one training session with the Andrea array microphone & Dragon since, if you’re like me, you’ll be starting from scratch with a brand new sound recognition profile for the Andrea mikes.So at $27.95, the Andrea S2 SuperBeam array was a bargain. It frees me from a headset. But it’s not as good as the two stereo mikes on my Surface Pro 2 that are much farther apart and quite a few inches closer to my mouth when I talk. The SP2 mikes, unlike the Andrea mikes, which are rather close together (< 4 inches), approach the accuracy of my Shure T1G-V microphone reference point.Update (4/8/17): Like to note that the microphone product I received does not say just Andrea SuperBeam on it as depicted on the Amazon product page. Instead the mike I got says Andrea SoundMAX SUPERBEAM and underneath, it says model number: Array-2S and part # C96-1019800-1. I'm looking into whether this is simply a change in product labeling over time or what. But not all reviewers here may be reviewing the same product, depending on the seller. The specs of SUPERBEAM mikes also labeled with "SoundMAX" appear to be very similar if not identical to those labeled with just "SUPERBEAM" but the SoundMAX ones are probably an older model (see below)..Also noticed that the USB sound card I got does not have "Pure Audio" on it, unlike the Amazon product picture. The underside of my device does have model USB-SA on it. From the web Andrea SoundMAX SUPERBEAM mikes were sold as early as 2008 (at least) and often bundled with computer products so what's being offered on Amazon by 3rd party resellers may be somebody's overstock from long ago. Mine came from the Mitch Mel Corp.On the very positive side of things I found that moving the array much closer to me greatly improves its recognition performance. I'm using my laptop hooked up to an external monitor about 2 feet away. If I move the array down onto the lap's lid, which is tilted towards me at a 45 deg angle above the horizontal, I can hang the microphone by its front flange on the top of the laptop lid about 12 inches away from my mouth. Now the voice recognition becomes really GREAT, much faster and much more accurate, approaching that of my Shure microphone gold standard. So this new result makes me very happy with my $27.99 purchase even though Amazon appears to be allowing resellers to sell stuff that's other than what's pictured on Amazon.

not for dictation / not for dragon naturally speaking
Dragon advises not to use array microphones for voice recognition/dictation. They are correct. I should have listened.Of course, the ads for the array mic are not so glum.So anyways, the array mic came with software. The software interface looks very slick, but alas, it doesn’t work all that well.Luckily, this item did not cost a lot.I am back to using my old Sennheiser headset which hurts my ears since the foam rubber cushions wore out. So now I am hanging the headset around my neck. The mic boom is near my mouth and the speakers are around my neck — doing no harm. My ears do not hurt and the mic works pretty good, all things considered.

Good & Bad – But read before buying
First, this website is great for researching Dragon Dictation improvement products. Invaluable for my searches: […]Second, I am pleased with this product. The microphone is not much to speak of, but the USB-SA audio pod is excellent (it is a combo pack). I bought a Cyber Acoustics AC-201 headset to go with the audio pod and my dictation accuracy has greatly increased. I won’t use the microphone, but considering the audio pod by itself costs more than this combo, you might as well buy the combo and simply not use the microphone. Bottom line: Audio Pod (5-star) micophone (2-star)Either way, I can’t recommend that website enough. They are awesome, so check it out before buying.

Doesn’t work wrong claims