Skype has sound quality?
Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m not all that fond of Skype, so it’s quite possible these “facts” are tainted by that opinion.
In this blog entry about Skype Going Retail, Andy Abramson makes a comment that “Skype to Skype quality is far better than Vonage to anything.” That’s not saying much for either Vonage or Skype.
Quite honestly, the sound quality I’ve gotten out of Vonage is, overall, as good as my PSTN line. I don’t personally know anyone on Skype to have tested a Skype-to-Skype call to compare it with. However, I have been hearing Andy on Ken Radio as well as the TWiTs TWiT Cast and all I can say is that the audio quality on Skype seems to leave something to be desired. There is a definite difference between, say, Ken Rutkowsi and Andy Abramson’s voice quality. Andy frequently joins in on, you guessed, it, Skype. The same can be said between Leo Laporte and the other TWiTs before they started having each participant use these high-quality recorders instead of Leo just mixing in the Skype audio feed.
Now granted, Leo and Ken are broadcasters and use high-quality gear to produce their stuff. I might be impressed when I can’t tell the difference in audio quality between Ken and Andy’s voice on Ken Radio when Andy is using Skype. Meanwhile, Skype doesn’t seem like it’s any better, or any worse, than, say, G.711 or even a decent G.729 call.
