5 Important Considerations for Conference Room Audio

Posted by Tom Brown on 17/06/2025

When it comes to video conferencing, many organisations prioritise video quality. At AV Xpert, we understand that while high-definition visuals are important, it’s actually the audio that is most critical. After all, if your sound is distorted, the effectiveness of your meeting is entirely compromised, no matter how clear the video feed may be.

As audio-visual specialists, we have years of experience installing audio equipment for conference rooms. In this article, we look at 5 important considerations to ensure your conference room is set up to deliver high-quality audio during video conference calls, allowing for seamless collaboration within your team and with external stakeholders.

1) Room Acoustics

Room acoustics are the foundation of good audio quality. Even the most advanced microphones and speakers cannot overcome poor room acoustics. Hard surfaces like glass walls or tiled floors, can cause sound to reflect, resulting in unwanted echo, which will distort the sound and make it very difficult for the remote participants to hear.

To improve acoustics, your room should be designed to include materials that can reduce echo such as soft furnishings, carpeted floors and soft ceiling tiles. If this is not possible, acoustic panelling can be strategically installed on walls or ceilings to reduce reverberation and dramatically improve audio clarity. This acoustic treatment will not only help people at the remote end to hear you clearly, but will also ensure you can hear the remote delegates clearly through your room speakers.

2) Microphone Coverage

Each conference room is different and demands a specific microphone setup tailored to its unique size and the requirements of the client for the space.

For example, a large conference hall used for presentations might only require a lapel mic for the speaker and handheld microphones for Q&A sessions - no need for full-room coverage, since the audience isn't regularly contributing to the discussion. On the other hand, a boardroom or townhall conference space might require full microphone coverage, to allow everyone in the room to be heard remotely without the need to pass around microphones.

AV Xpert can supply a variety of different microphone types, including in-ceiling microphones, boundary microphones, wireless lapel and handheld mics, and more. We take time to understand your space and collaborate closely with you to ensure we supply the right audio solution to meet your needs.

3) Speakers

Speakers are responsible for delivering voices from the other end of the call to the people in the room, and their quality and placement can greatly impact the meeting experience.

What’s more, speakers can also be used for voice lift in larger conference spaces, amplifying the people speaking within the room, to ensure everyone can hear clearly, especially at the back.

We install in-ceiling and wall-mounted speakers in a variety of sizes to suit the acoustics and size of your space. We ensure that sound is distributed evenly throughout your room, so everyone can experience the same level of audio quality.

It’s also extremely important to consider speaker positioning relative to the microphones, when designing a conference room audio system, to minimise gain before feedback, and maximise gain from microphones before unwanted echo is heard at the other end of the call (when remote participants hear themselves back through their own speakers).

4) Digital Signal Processing

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is another critical consideration when designing high-quality, seamless conference audio systems. This technology balances sound, removes unwanted background noise, and reduces echo at the other end of the call, ensuring that voices can be heard clearly at both ends.

Without good quality DSP, your system will have very limited functionality, and will experience all kinds of audio problems, so a good audio processor is critical.

DSP is sometimes built into the hardware, particularly in smaller conference and collaboration room equipment, and with the advancement in AI technologies, some top-of-the-range systems now automatically adjust to the room acoustics, to provide the optimum clarity of sound. However, for larger specialist spaces, where a fully bespoke audio-visual system is required, manual DSP configuration will be needed to get optimal performance from within the space. At AV Xpert, our experienced technicians are trained and qualified to configure the DSP of our audio installations, calibrating it to suit your space and achieve the best sound quality.

5) Simple Audio Control

We install touch-screen control panels that can fully control your meeting and importantly, for the purpose of this article, allow you to adjust the audio settings in your room quickly and easily, meaning if the audio is quiet coming from the other end, it’s a simple click on the controller to increase the levels within the room, maintaining audio clarity and preventing disruption to the call.

Our control panels feature customised UI and UX programming tailored to your requirements, offering user-friendly control with your own branding included.

Audio Installations from AV Xpert

AV Xpert deliver high-quality audio installations for conference rooms all sizes. Whether you have a compact huddle space or a large conference hall, we can design and install bespoke audio systems tailored specifically to your requirements. Contact us today for more information.