Boardroom Echo With Installed Mic System
This page is for rooms with an installed audio system - several microphones, a rack processor and separate speakers - that still echo.
(One video bar or a laptop-and-screen setup? Start with our general echo guide.) First, two 30-second checks: is someone's laptop live in the same call, and has anything been plugged in or moved since it last worked. The causes below take it from there.
Work top to bottom - most common causes first
1. Someone's own laptop is quietly live in the call
Even in a fully installed room, echo appears whenever a participant has their personal laptop joined to the same meeting with its microphone or speakers switched on.
- 1Check the meeting participant list on screen - if a laptop is listed as a separate audio participant alongside the room system, that's very likely the cause
- 2Ask that person to leave the meeting on their laptop entirely, or at minimum mute both its mic and speaker if they need the screen for something else
- 3Confirm only the room's dedicated device (the Teams/Zoom room PC or codec) has live audio
- 4Check no one's phone is also sat on the table with speakerphone or a calling app open
If every other device in the room is confirmed silent and the echo continues, move to the next check rather than assuming it's fixed.
2. Something changed in the room since it last worked properly
Echo that starts after months of trouble-free use, rather than being there from day one, is almost always caused by a recent change, not the system wearing out.
- 1Think back to the last working call and what's different since: a new dongle or laptop dock plugged in, a speaker or screen physically moved, volume nudged up on the touch panel
- 2Open the meeting platform's audio settings and confirm only the room's proper mic and speaker devices are selected - not a stray Bluetooth or HDMI audio output that's crept onto the list
- 3Put speaker volume back to the level marked or set by the installer
- 4Temporarily unplug anything added since it last worked and retest
If putting everything back doesn't help, the fault is inside the room's audio processor configuration, not a simple room change - continue through the checks below.
3. The echo canceller is listening to the wrong thing
The far end hears themselves constantly and clearly, no matter who is speaking or which seat they're in - this points at routing inside the processor, not a particular microphone.
- 1Note whether the echo happens regardless of who speaks or where they're sitting - that consistency is the key symptom to report
- 2Check whether anything new has been wired directly into the room's speaker system, bypassing the normal video bar or room PC path
- 3Tell your AV provider exactly that phrase - "echo present continuously, independent of seating position" - it points an engineer straight at the right area
- 4Do not attempt to rewire or replug the audio cabling behind the rack yourself
This is a configuration fix inside design software (such as Biamp Tesira or Q-SYS Designer) that tells the processor exactly what the speakers are playing, so it can subtract it back out - it needs an engineer on site or remote with programming access, not a setting you can reach from the touch panel.
4. Two echo cancellers are fighting each other
Echo has an odd warbling or underwater quality rather than a clean repeat, and often started right after an install, a video bar swap, or a software update.
- 1Note whether the fault began right after any install, firmware update, or hardware swap on the video bar, room PC, or DSP
- 2Ask your installer or IT team which single device is meant to be doing the echo cancelling in this room - there should only be one
- 3Avoid toggling any echo cancellation setting in the video platform or video bar's own menu yourself - this can make a two-canceller conflict worse rather than better
- 4Report the timing (which update or swap it followed) as precisely as you can
Both the room's processor and the conferencing device can each have their own built-in echo canceller, and when both are switched on at once they partially undo each other's work. Manufacturer guidance for these systems is consistent that only one should be active, with the other set to bypass - this is a setting inside the video bar/platform admin menu and the DSP design software, both needing engineer access.
5. Speaker sound is reaching the microphones too loudly
Echo is faint or absent at normal volume but appears or clearly worsens the louder the room is turned up.
- 1Test a call at a lower volume than usual and note if the echo reduces or disappears
- 2Avoid pushing the volume control past the level marked on the touch panel or set at handover
- 3Report the specific pattern "echo gets worse as we turn the volume up" - this single detail tells an engineer it's a gain issue, not a wiring or configuration one
- 4Don't attempt to adjust microphone gain or sensitivity settings on the rack DSP yourself
Every echo canceller can only remove so much sound before it runs out of headroom; if speakers are set louder, or microphones more sensitive, than the room was designed for, more sound reaches the mics than the canceller can cope with. Correcting gain structure needs the design software and, ideally, a structured test call - an engineer visit or remote session.
6. One microphone out of several is the culprit
Echo only happens, or is noticeably worse, when people near one particular seat or table mic speak, while conversation from every other seat sounds clean.
- 1Note which specific seat, table mic or ceiling zone triggers it
- 2Check whether that mic has visibly moved - closer to a speaker, knocked during cleaning, or unplugged and replugged into a different socket
- 3As a temporary workaround, avoid speaking from that seat until it's looked at
- 4Give your AV provider the seat or mic position - it narrows the fix to one channel instead of the whole system
A single mislocated or mis-routed microphone among several can put echo on the far end even though the rest of the room's mics are behaving correctly. Reassigning or repositioning it correctly in the processor's channel map is a DSP configuration task.
7. It only happens sometimes, not constantly
A brief flutter of echo occurs only when both ends talk over each other, or just after the call connects, then settles down - genuinely different from echo that's there throughout the call.
- 1Note whether the echo is brief and tied to overlapping speech or the start of the call, or whether it's constant throughout
- 2If it's constant, this isn't this cause - go back and check the reference routing and gain causes above instead
- 3If it's genuinely brief and occasional, no user setting fixes it - there is nothing to adjust from the touch panel
- 4Report how often it happens and whether it's linked to people talking over each other, so an engineer can test it on a live call
Adaptive echo cancellers continuously relearn the room's echo pattern in the background; when both sides speak at once, or right after a change, the canceller briefly hasn't caught up. If it's more than occasional, it usually means the canceller isn't converging properly and needs checking during a structured test call.
8. A wireless or expansion mic rejoined the system wrongly after charging
Echo, or one mic behaving oddly, started right after a wireless table mic was recharged, swapped between charging bay slots, or had its battery replaced.
- 1Always return each wireless mic to its own labelled charging slot, not just any empty one - networked charging stations link a mic to a channel by the slot it's docked in
- 2After any battery swap, speak from that mic alone before the meeting starts and confirm it sounds normal
- 3If mics have been mixed up between slots, note which physical mic is now misbehaving
- 4Report which mic and which slot to your AV provider rather than trying to re-pair it yourself
Putting a wireless mic back in the wrong charging slot can silently reassign it to a different channel, with different gain or routing, than it had before. Correcting the channel and gain assignment is done in the base station or DSP configuration, not from the mic itself.
Vendor-specific quirks worth knowing
Cisco: Cisco's collaboration device audio integration documentation is explicit that when an external DSP is handling echo cancellation, the Cisco endpoint's own echo cancellation should be switched off so only one system is doing the job.
QSC (Q-SYS): Q-SYS's AEC guidance states the conferencing codec's own echo cancellation must be disabled, and the codec must not be left in a mode that loops microphone audio back into the reference signal, when a Q-SYS Core is handling cancellation instead.
Biamp: Biamp's Tesira documentation defines the 'AEC Reference' as literally the signal the canceller has been told to remove, and warns that a microphone must never be routed into its own reference - doing so produces a garbled, underwater-sounding artefact on that mic. Routing one mic into another mic's reference is different: that is standard, supported mix-minus practice in rooms where mics serve both in-room reinforcement and the call. If a room suddenly sounds garbled after a change, a self-referencing mic route is a prime suspect.
Sennheiser: Sennheiser's TeamConnect Ceiling planning guidance recommends aiming an exclusion zone toward the front of the room, in the direction of the video display and its loudspeakers, to improve echo cancellation performance in reverberant rooms. Exclusion zones are also used separately to ignore constant noise sources such as air-conditioning vents. If zones were set up before a display or speaker was moved, they may now be ignoring the wrong area entirely.
Shure: Shure's MXW networked charging stations link a wireless microphone to its channel by the physical slot it's docked in - swapping microphones between charging slots can silently reassign a mic to a different channel than it had before.
When to stop and call an engineer
- ·The echo is constant throughout the call, not occasional, and doesn't depend on who's speaking or where they're sitting - this points to the echo canceller's configuration, which needs design software to fix.
- ·The problem started right after an installation, a firmware or software update on the video bar or codec, or new equipment being added to the room - likely two echo cancellers now conflicting.
- ·Echo only happens, or is worse, when a specific seat or microphone is used - a single-channel fault that needs access to the processor's channel map.
- ·You've completed the 30-second checks (no second live laptop, nothing new plugged in, volume back to normal) and the echo is completely unchanged.
- ·A wireless microphone has been repaired, replaced or had firmware updated and now sounds different or contributes to echo.
- ·Furniture or a speaker was physically moved and echo appeared even though no settings were touched - the room's acoustic tuning in the DSP may need revisiting.
We support all five major vendors - Neat, HP Poly, Logitech, Yealink and Cisco - and it doesn't matter who installed the room. Tell us what you're seeing and an engineer will take it from here.