Near end microphone audio gates or cuts out for far end participants

[santiagosuave]

Problem: far end participants experience audio drop outs and extreme gating of near end/conference room microphone.

Configuration: Shure MXA910 > Dante > QSC Q-Sys Core 8 Flex > USB > brand new Dell OptiPlex5090 running Zoom Rooms 5.11.3 on Windows 10.  

At first, we turned off all sound processing from Zoom Rooms to let the Core handle AEC.  The issue was first noticed.

Then we bypassed all processing in Core and turned it into an expensive Dante-to-USB converter and turned on Zoom processing: same results.

Turned off processing on both ends: same results

Bypassed Core altogether and used an Audinate Dante-to-USB converter with Zoom Rooms processing turned on: better results but still not acceptable.  Turned off Zoom Rooms processing, no change.

We have multiple rooms with the same issue.  We've also tried downgrading Zoom Rooms versions down to 5.11 and 5.10 but no change.  

When using the same Shure mic and Core plugged into a MacMini running regular Zoom, this isn't an issue and the audio is great.  Windows tests also result in good audio on the Dell PC so the issue lies with Zoom Rooms somewhere.  Even with audio processing turned off in Zoom, we can still hear it gating and processing.  

1) Is there a way to completely disable Zoom Room's audio processing (even the stuff still operating in the background) so we can let the Core 8 Flex do the work?

2) Does Zoom have a guide that outlines the settings in Zoom Rooms when using an external DSP such as a QSC Core?

[YaBoiB]

Hello @santiagosuave, 

You may want to reach out to our PSO team as indicated in this document here. https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360022463651-ProAV-Divisible-Space they should be able to assist you with your set up and distribution of your audio and video needs. 

I hope that this helps. 

Brandon

[santiagosuave]

Thank you @YaBoiB .  I sent an email to the PSO team last week and am awaiting a response.  

[santiagosuave]

As an additional troubleshooting step, I've bypassed all Dante microphones and Q-sys cores and used two different basic USB microphones (MXL and nicer Rode) and still have the same issue so I can rule out our hardware at this point.

[YaBoiB]

@santiagosuave, 

 It might have something to do with the audio processing on the newer versions. Zoom uses aggressive audio compression algorithms in its code, I believe. Another avenue we can take is to create a support ticket and include logging from the room so that the audio engineering team can look through the code and isolate the issue. Have you attempted that already?

Brandon

[santiagosuave]

@YaBoiB 

If the newer versions have more intense audio processing, that would make sense why I haven't noticed it this bad before.  I did open a ticket just this morning (#15231524) but I haven't pulled any logs yet.  If I can figure out how to do that, I'd attach those to the ticket.  Thanks for the suggestion!

[YaBoiB]

@santiagosuave, 

 Have you attempted to revert to an older version and replicate the issue? To get diagnostic logs from the endpoint, log in to the web UI using the IP assigned to the device and then go into settings > diagnostic logs. Now, it is in a different location for some devices, but most devices logs are pretty easy to find once you get into the Web UI of the device. 

Thanks, 

Brandon