AutoCom's® response to issues of low volume with the Pro-M1 systems

Over the last couple of weeks we have seen an increase in the number of communications, via emails and on the web, relating to issues of low volume with our Pro-M1 systems.

Firstly may we apologise to anyone who may have experienced any difficulties and assure you all that if anyone has a fault with their system it will be sorted out for them.

However, while a fault may not be out of the question or be a possible cause for some customers (although we have NOT seen ANY to date) we know that it is easy for a customer to misunderstand our products and assume that it is faulty or sub-standard, when in fact it is not. For this reason we always ask our customer to try a few extra set-up and use tips before asking them to return a system back for testing.

Out of many thousands of systems sold and used worldwide we see only a few customers with any problems and 99% of these are easily sorted out over the phone or by email, as they normally relate to incorrect set-up and/or use. Of course we get many more customers praising our systems than we do complaining and nearly every complaint is sorted out quickly.

By providing some extra guidance we have helped most of these customers to get the performance and satisfaction they want. Save a few that may have a hearing problem, helmets that do not lend themselves to have any type of communications fitted easily or perhaps some customers who insist on using over attenuating earplugs, which effectively puts this group into the hearing problem category. We have never had a Pro-M1 put out low levels unless low levels were put in.

The fact is that the Pro-M1 will exceed most users expectations and our performance claims, when set-up and used as designed. The Pro-M1 can produce higher speech level between rider and passenger that the old Pro3000 could.

I think that the main problem is that some customers need additional help in understanding the differences between Autocom and other systems. The fact is that nearly every complaint is from users who have used other cheaper systems that don’t work and then expect ours to work the same. THEY DON’T. Ours are different and for good reason.

Customers that have never used any intercom systems before tend to accept the special instruction for set-up and use and have far less problems or need for extra support. When they do need any extra support they generally find that it helps them to get the satisfaction the want quickly and easily.

SO WHY ALL THE CONFUSION?

The basic principle of an intercom is a microphone, amplifier and speaker. (Of course phones and transceivers are just wireless extensions of the system and usually interface into the main control box with other inputs such as music). The microphone picks up the sound of your voice and the amplifier amplifies it to the speakers. The problem with this type of basic system is that the microphones usually also pick up all the helmet noise and amplifies that too, adding to the helmet noise, making it much louder, resulting in the need for more amplification to hear the speech, but of course having a volume control to be able to turn this up also amplified the unwanted helmet noise. Catch 22. And why we do not fit a volume control. Our systems are set to the optimum level and so any adjustments won’t help, other than to compensate for incorrect set-up and use, resulting in poor performance.

The basic fact is that you need a very special microphone combined with specially designed filters and speakers that are tuned and matched to the system. (A race car cannot win races with just the best engine alone, it also needs the best brakes, chassis, tyres and of course the all important driver.

We have designed and provided all but the good driver bit, and so now all we need do is help you understand how to set-up and use our systems properly.

I think that a good explanation that I often use is, if a microphone can pick up the sound of your voice when it is away from your mouth, then of course it can also pick up any sound in between, IE helmet noise. Therefore one can expect a system not to work at higher speeds if the microphone can pick your voice up away from the mouth.

Autocom’s high tech microphones effectively do not pick up any sound, or very little, when away from your mouth and so if not used correctly can effectively cut out the sound of the users voice along with the undesirable helmet noise that they are designed to not pick up. The solution is to find and use the microphone’s LOUD SPOT, as everything’s been carefully balanced and tuned to this. Not doing this results in customers thinking and claiming that it’s not loud enough? Which of course it won’t be if not used correctly.

Obviously if you want the best sound out of the speakers, you need to get them directly over your ears, as if you were holding them there. This helps provide the speaker sound to the ears, in front of the helmet noise. Moving the speakers away from the ears allows the powerful helmet noise to over power the speaker sound, often resulting in some of the emails that we are seeing. You should test the system out of the helmet before installation, with speech (using the microphone loud spot) and preferably also with good quality music so that you have a good understanding of just how good it can be at its best.

You should find that when set-up and used this way that it is extremely good, although slight losses can be expected in a helmet, especially at higher speeds/noise, it should easily perform as we claim and provide clear speech at almost any speed, exceeding most users expectations, especially if they have used other system.

We realise that some of the confusion may have resulted from our instructions not going into enough detail and we apologise for assuming that what was obvious to ourselves and some customers, may not have been so obvious to some. We are now redesigning our instructions to help customers with a better understanding of how to set-up and use our systems properly and hopefully avoid any misunderstanding or confusion.

Of course what we have said above is based of the research we have conducted and may not be specific to you and so if you feel that these extra explanations do not help you to solve any problems that you may have we ask that you contact the distributor for your country.

USA TopGear
UK AutoCom

Best regards,

Tom Beman MD
AutoCom

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