As is my usual strategy, I tossed the little PSG-01s into my suitcase thinking that I make use of it for a while and see how it handles the road. It’s been on the road quite a while now, and doesn’t seem to suffer the travel a bit. The device is a rugged little aluminum tube. It’s built to last.
Yamaha has a long and enviable history in pro audio products, many of which I’ve used in TV and recording studios over the years. The little PSG-01s is a more consumer oriented offering, but it seems like a well-considered design.
The PSG-01s is position sensing and works in two orientations. Standing on its end it functions as a USB speakerphone, with both of the front-mounted speakers serving up the party on the other end of the call. When laid on its side it switches off the microphone array and splits the two speakers to provide pseudo-stereo playback from the host computer.
I say “pseudo-stereo” as I doubt that a meaningful stereo image can be generated by a pair of small drivers only couple of inches apart. Nonetheless, it’s an effective little playback device. I used it to listen to some Escape Pod podcasts while traveling and found it more than up to the task.
Standing upright so as to be in speakerphone mode you can see a clear plastic ring on the top of the unit. That ring lights up to indicate that the microphone array is active. Yes, I said “microphone array.” The PSG-01s has a small array of four directional condenser microphone capsules in the upper-end of the chassis.
This microphone array is especially interesting as it gives the device the ability to pick up sounds from all around the device. You may recall that I’ve used similar devices that only picked up sounds from a 120 degree arc directly in front of the unit. This is why those devices have proven unsatisfactory for conducting conference calls with several people seated around a small table.
There are a number of buttons on the side of the device. These buttons control volume up/down, hook state and recording/microphone mode.
When the accompanying PSG-01s Controller is installed to the host PC (Windows only) the device becomes nicely integrated with the Skype client. For example, tapping the off-hook button causes the Skype dialing dialogue to be displayed. Tapping the on-hook button terminates a call just as you’d expect.
The top most button toggles the state of the units microphone. The PSG-01s can easily be used as a microphone to record directly to the host PC. In this mode the speaker is disabled.
The back of the device features only the mini-USB connector for connection to the host PC. The device is bus powered so no other connection is required. Unlike some other devices that I’ve tried, the PSG-01s was properly powered by the USB port on my laptop & netbook.
It appears that I’ve been working my way down the device in describing it to you. Well, if you look at the bottom of the device you’ll find a threaded socket. It appears that the PSG-01s can be mounted on a mic stand or tripod. I didn’t have such hardware handy to try this myself, but it seems like a nice idea.
I found that I really didn’t need the Controller software. It works as promised but if you like to keep your PCs systems clean & simple you simply don’t need to load the program. The manual states clear that the controller software is not required because the PC will see the PSG-01s as a generic audio device.
I did think it was really cute the way it uses the inertial sensors to make the Controller GUI come & go. Just shake the PSG-01s and the controller software pops open. Shake it again and it goes away. How very Wii-like!
That’s enough about its various physical properties & software….now on to how it works!
For the purposes of this review I thought I’d conduct a little test to mimic that kind of situations that I face when I travel. I often have a small group of people collected around a small table, perhaps at a hotel.
To mimic this I set the PSG-01s in the middle of my dining room table. It’s a rectangular table to the far ends are a little more distant than the sides. The PSG-01s is facing one of the far end, where my laptop can likely be heard.
Starting with the PSG-01s in its normal conference mode I made a recording as I moved from position to position around the table. All the while I blathered on about the PSG-01s, recording my voice to Cool Edit Pro 2.1 in a high quality mono wave format.
For this initial recording the image above is the waveform display and the image below is the spectral energy plot.
If you listen to the recording and look at the waveform at the same time I think you’ll get a clear sense that the PSG-01s is not truly omni-directional in its conference mode. My voice when in front of the unit is loud and clear, it’s nearly as good at each of the positions 90 degrees to the side, but when I’m at the opposite end of the table I definitely sound distant.
This observation tends to indicate a cardioid pickup pattern. The following illustration is a cardioid polar pattern overlaid on my test setup.
Let me be the first to admit that this little test setup is less than ideal. I would need a much more controlled environment, with calibrated instrumentation to conduct a definitive test.
Further, my test setup is not an accurate reflection of the situation most commonly faced in the field. In hotel rooms and small offices it’s more common to have square or round tables, not the large rectangular table in our dining room. Thus the PSG-01s may actually do better than my little test would imply.
Even if the PSG-01s is not truly omnidirectional in conference mode, it’s pickup pattern is still much broader than the ClearOne Chat 50 that I’ve been using. This makes the PSG-01s a better choice for use when there’s more than one person participating in a conference call from this location.
The spectral energy distribution display may be a little hard to read when scaled down to fit the web page. If you click on the image above you’ll get a full resolution image which makes it much easier to read the vertical axis labels. Examining these labels you’ll find that the vertical axis measures frequency from 0 – 14 KHz.
Look closely and you’ll also see that the audio output of the microphone array has been rolled off after 7 KHz. You might expect this if I had passed the audio stream through a G.722 encoded call channel. I didn’t. I recorded directly into Cool Edit Pro on my laptop. So the PSG-01s is itself performing a low pass filter on the audio stream.
Normally I would not even feel that this was noteworthy since much of wideband telephony currently happens using codecs employing a 16 KHz sample rate, so rolling off above around 7 KHz is a perfectly rational thing to do.
However, I do find it a bit odd for such filtering to be implemented in a “Skype Certified” audio device. Skype often makes use of their own SILK codec which is capable of sample rates well beyond 16 KHz. The PSG-01s doesn’t really take optimal advantage of the available audio bandwidth.
Truthfully, in making this observation I am really picking nits. The PSG-01s sounds great. It delivers a genuine wideband call experience, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. It’s merely the inconsistency between the engineering and the marketing realms I often find amusing.
I thought it a waste to only consider the merits of the PSG-01s in its conference calling mode. So, while I had the gear setup I did the same little recording test again, this time putting the PSG-01s into it’s pure recording mode. In this mode it defeats the speakers and acts solely as a microphone.
For this second recording the image above is the waveform display and the image below is the spectral energy plot.
My impression of this admittedly non-scientific test is that the PSG-01s was more uniformly omni-directional. There’s less variation in record level as I move around the table. Further, there’s spectral energy evident up to 20 KHz, which implies that there is no filtering engaged in microphone mode.
All of this is a very good sign. It implies that Yamaha can tinker with the filtering and directional properties of the PSG-01s in software, then deliver that as firmware upgrade to users. The Controller software on the PC clearly shows the ability to update the firmware on the PSG-01s. My sample unit was running firmware v1.09. They can redefine the behavior of the device in conference mode if they desire.
Conclusion
True their long history in audio Yamaha has created a very capable device in the little PSG-01s. It’s very capable as a USB microphone, and almost as good as a USB speakerphone. Under Windows it supports close integration with Skype. In my mind there is no doubt that it’s a fine quality little device. If it didn’t have such potential I would not have bothered to experiment with it so completely.
About my only reservation is a little matter of price. The MSRP of $299 is more than a wee bit optimistic. Over the 2009 Christmas holidays the PSG-01s was offered at an attractive promotional price. I see that the Skype store still has it on offer for $219. Even that’s a little dear for my taste.
It’s nearest competitor is the not-inconsiderable Polycom C100S, which I have used and recommended for several years. That device commonly retails for around $120.
My sense is that if Yamaha et al can get their pricing into line then they will have a winning product on their hands.