Fongo Community Forums

Hi, I am using FreePhoneLine's desktop application, and I am using a headset connected to the PC's speaker and microphone ports.

I have a question about the microphone volume. I routinely called Fongo's echo-test phone number to check whether my microphone volume is OK or not.

I also use Windows 7's Sound-Recorder application to record my talk and play it back.

I found that the talk-back volume from Fongo's echo-test number is much higher than the play-back volume from the Sound-Recorder application.

I am confused. Isn't it that the volume from these two sources should be the same, since I am doing exactly the same talk in both tests? Does Fongo's echo-test number use software to artificially boost the play-back volume above its true value?

While I'm not going to test (I also don't use Windows 7), you could try calling these (416 and 250) test numbers as well: http://thetestcall.blogspot.com/.
If you experience the same thing across all test numbers, chances are the issue isn't with the testing services.

OK. Let's forget about Windows 7 & the Sound-Recorder stuff for a moment.

Let's say, I called this # from that TestCall page, (416) 342-9562, and listened to my own talk that it echoed back.

Then I did another test by calling my own phone # and left a voice-mail message there.

Afterwards, I listened to my voice-mail message. To my surprise, I found the volume of this message is noticeably lower than that of my echoed-back talk from (416) 342-9562.

So either (416) 342-9562 is artifically increasing the volume of my voice beyond its true value when echoing it back, or the FreePhoneLine voice-mail system is artifically decreasing the volume of my voice during recording, and/or during play-back.

So what exactly happened here?

torontovoipnewuserx wrote:
So either (416) 342-9562 is artifically increasing the volume of my voice beyond its true value when echoing it back

Based on my understanding of the host service being used for that number, I strongly doubt it. They don't do anything to the audio.

or the FreePhoneLine voice-mail system is artifically decreasing the volume

I believe the voicemail audio recording is transcoded and compressed, but as I am not privy to what's occurring on the backend, I have no way of verifying for sure.
But the audio sounds lossy to me. When Freephoneline's voicemail files are emailed to users, they're 56kbps, low-bitrate MP3s. I would be less inclined to use the voicemail system as
a test source.