Shure - MXA920W-S

I'll second the recommendation of the Shure MXA920 microphone for this configuration, but it needs to be configured for the appropriate coverage area using Shure Designer, and the acoustic fencing feature enabled. Choose either a Shure P300 DSP or Q-SYS to handle your audio I/O. This combo is hard to beat for "fishbowl" conference rooms. Do not try to use a beamtracking type mic array in this situation, you will have a hard time getting it to ignore reflections in the room. Been down that road too many times!

Having dealt with many difficult "fishbowl" conference rooms, I would recommend you have a serious look at a Shure MXA920, with the acoustic fence enabled. Be sure to be very precise with your Shure designer layout (mic position, room layout, coverage areas), because when you step outside the acoustic fence, you're completely cancelled out. Same goes for any adverse reflections within the room. It is absolutely wild. It won't make a bad room sound good, but it certainly will offer an improvement in audio quality you would have had to struggle with any other mic solution.

Define a larger coverage area to account for user movement, with the MXA920, you can adjust this with a great amount of precision to account for these problems, and does a far better job than the poly mic, plus with the steeper angle of incidence from the ceiling, you minimize many of the reflective walls from the equation. The pro audio world is never perfect, you're managing compromises.

I agree with acoustic treatment is best but realize it is not always possible. I also agree that the MXA920 mic does work wonders in a room with no acoustic treatment. In the past few years Shure has really done a great job continuing to improve the mic pickup on the MXA line of mics.

The neat bar pro is pretty good on its own. Its built-in beam formed microphones have great reach. On the few occasions, we need additional… I use a QSYS USB bridge to connected to our Shure MXA 910s and 920s.

The neat bar pro is pretty good on its own. Its built-in beam formed microphones have great reach. On the few occasions, we need additional… I use a QSYS USB bridge to connected to our Shure MXA 910s and 920s.

What’s your budget like? A Shure P300 with a few MXA310s on the table would be very easy to setup and would sound great. You would need to get a POE+ network switch as well but that would be a totally bulletproof solution. What’s your speaker setup like in the room?

Love the 920, but since this seems like a DIY thing I figured table mics would be easiest to institute. With the P300 it would also be very easy to add a cheap amp and a set speakers to get some better than average audio in the room.

Audio wise, the only options that I would consider for a room like this are either Shure MXA ceiling mic or Biamp Parle mics. Either a Q-Sys core or a Biamp TesiraForte. But I have to say that I have been amazed at what Shure is doing on the DSP side. A Shure P300 combined with an MXA920, connected via USB-C to a codec does wonders. On the video side: Q-Sys cameras are easy to control and deploy but their video quality is far from optimal. I would go with either Cisco , Poly or Neat. They all have different price points depending on the level you are looking for. Usually they add a word like “Pro” to the good toys ;-). That’s a deeper conversation with the IT department.

I started getting into the rally ecosystem and quickly steered back out. I've now installed Shure microflex systems in several conference rooms that size and paired it with Barco CX wireless AV adapters. Having completely wireless microphone/speaker and HDMI is fantastic. Works really well and sounds great.