This is a question no one has been able to answer....thought maybe all you experts mi

[dixierose]

I have a 6 year old Dell Dimension 8300 desktop PC
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.00 GHz
RAM: 1 GB
OS: XP Pro
Sound card: Microsoft Unimodem half-duplex audio device
Sound card: Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 24-bit/192 kHz DAC 106dB SNR

I have been a transcriptionist for 10 years. About 2-3 years ago I started noticing that whenever I left a blank for something inaudible in a report the QA (quality assurance) team could always understand the blank. My younger sister who is an MT in the same office with me with the exact same PC setup is having the same problem so I don't think it is a hearing problem.

Setup: The first 8 years we had dialup internet. Last 2 years wireless internet.

First 2-1/2 years we had cheap company PC, cheap headphones, and cheap speakers.
Bought our own PC in 2004, cheap speakers, cheap headphones.
2008 switched to wireless internet, same PC, same cheap speakers, but upgraded headphones to $100.00 noise-canceling headphones.

Is my poor quality wireless internet degrading the voice? It generally runs 400-800 kbps, but it cuts out so much. Whenever I test my internet there is never any packet loss.
Have the many power outages over the years damaged the sound card?

What can I do to improve the situation? New soundcard? New speakers?

I would appreciate anyone's thoughts regarding this....it's driving me nuts because I cannot hear what QA can.

 

[Nanobyte]

I would not rule out hearing. If your sister has the same problem, it could be a congenital defect in addition to old age! If you've been transcribing for 10 years, yes, you are old! Hearing drops off quite quickly in the teens. Listening to loud music in high-powered PC loudspeakers about 2ft away will do the trick nicely too. Stores that have teens hanging around outside often install noise makers that cannot be heard by adults with deteriorated hearing but are very annoying to the teens.

As I mentioned in a later comment to your other thread, good noise-cancelling headphones are the best bet. You should check out reviews as $100 does not get you very far today. I occasionally transcribe TV show and movie dialog. Speakers are fine for most dialog but the garbled portions require headphones and no background noise. Having some foresight into what may be being said also helps but your experience should be good in that issue.

Power outages are unlikely to be an issue - more likely to cause speaker problems with voltage spikes. I would discount this.

If you are only using headphones, the speakers won't make the slightest difference. As far as I know the comprehendable part of speech is not in the low frequencies so powerful speakers are of little value anyway. In expensive PC speakers you are mostly paying for extra bass capability which requires a lot more power.

You refer to the Internet. How are you listening to the audio? Are you downloading a sound file and playing it or listening to it live over the Internet. If you are downloading the file as an mp3 or wav then playing it, the Internet has nothing to do with the problem. Any file download is likely to stop and start but should be complete when finished.

If there are any doubts then you could get the author to send a CRC or MD5 value of the original that you can compare with the received file (using an appropriate utility). Should not be necessary - audio will sound like crap or incomplete if some of it is missing.

 

[dixierose]

Thank you, thank you!

Thank you very much for the comprehensive explanation. While my sister and I have never been exposed to loud music as normal teens are (guess we weren't normal as this never appealed to us LOL) I am 53 and she is 51, not exactly spring chickens.

The reason I route my headphones through external speakers is because when I plug them directly into the PC headphone jack there is not enough volume (found out later this is a government regulation that restricts the volume).

I currently use over-the-head audio-technica ATH-ANC7 noise-cancelling headphones, I think I paid 120.00. How much do you think I would need to spend for excellent headphones? I have seen audiophile headphones for $1500.00. What would be some of the top brands?

I download the wav, dss, or MP3 files to my PC and then play them. I do know that the player used to play the dictation makes a big difference by experience. Most transcription platforms have a player built into the system so this cannot be helped too much...some of them are good...some terrible. At a previous company where I worked one of their techs was an audiophile and he fined tuned the player and the clarity was fantastic. Other platforms use a separate player and a lot of companies will use ExpressScribe player, a free download, and it can make the best dictation sound like crap. I have found the StartStop player to be above average, it is $100.00. BTW, all these players whether embedded in a transcription platform or not use the Windows Media player (I don't really understand how).

I really appreciate your reply especially since you have had experience transcribing and actually know the ins and outs of good/bad dictation. At least I now know what to spend my money on!! Again, many, many thanks

 

[Nanobyte]

I really appreciate your reply especially since you have had experience transcribing and actually know the ins and outs of good/bad dictation.

Yeah, you know how you press the headphones to your ears and move your head around in the futile effort to find an orientation that improves the sound!

I don't have any expensive headphones but my max volume is deafening. Have you checked that your player, and the Windows or sound card mixer, are at full volume? Better quality speakers or headphones often need more power to drive them but I would be surprised if the max volume was as low as you described. Borrow someone else's headphones and see if the volume is low for them too. I have more or less the same sound card as you.

You may want to go to a different audio player. I realize that when transcribing it's not only audio quality that matters, it's also how easy the player is to jump back a short time for replay. That's probably why you have been using special players.

As I don't do it for a living I use regular players. If I want to jump back I click on the timeline with a mouse. Most players will jump back using the left and right arrow keys, either a fixed amount (my WMP jumps 10 secs, Billy 5 secs) or more if you hold down. Another trick, which you can probably do easier with your specialized players, is to open in an audio editor (I use payware GoldWave) where you can set the start and finish times accurately and play the inaudible passage over and over without break.

Just about all regular players have a 10 band graphic equalizer (WMP, Winamp etc) which solves that issue for you. Your audiophile may have simply boosted the higher frequencies (although that can be hard on the brain).

If you have a very quiet working environment you may be better off getting good "normal" headphones rather than noise cancelling. Given your age though, it may be a futile exercise. It's the treble sounds (high frequencies) that you lose most with age. If you pursue that, copy a poor recording file on to an mp3 player, take it with you to the store and audition the headphones in the flesh. Using an mp3 player in your work is another possible solution for the really poor recordings.

I would say your best steps are:
1. Look into boosting the volume from the player/pc
2. See if regular players are better using their tone adjustments
3. Look at solutions that involve money

BTW if you don't have the surround sound mixer for the sound card available it can be run from Start / Programs / Creative etc and is probably called the Creative Sound Mixer. You can set it to reside in the system tray. It has the inputs, volumes and 7-band graphic equalizer.

 

[dixierose]

Being as I do this for a living I use a foot pedal that controls the start/stop, fast forward and rewind...saves a lot of time.

I will check to see that all volumes are set at highest setting. The low volume is something I noticed right after I bought the PC. When I called Dell about it they really didn't know why it was that way and didn't know what to do about it...so much for their help.

Thanks for all your help and good suggestions. I will put them all to use and see what is best.