Dictaphone PowerMic II Handheld Microphone

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I very recently purchased a Dictaphone Powermic II and went through training. For kicks, I set up two laptops with Dragon 10.1 Medical and created a new profile on each (using different microphones of course), and while wearing my old Sennheiser ME-3 and holding the Powermic, read through the Pathology Reports training module. I subjected both profiles to the same set of some 500+ real dictations using Voctool and adapted the user profiles. I then dictated a total of five real clinical consult notes (each 3-4 pages long) after re-running the audio-setup wizard, and while wearing the Sennheiser and holding the PowerMic for simultaneously dictating on both computers. I did not perform any corrections and just completed all of the notes.

Results (in a relatively quiet environment and dictated with well collected thought process and in a well-rested state):

Signal to noise ratios: Powermic 23, Sennheiser 34

Errors: PowerMic: 3 errors in one of the notes, 1 in another and no errors in 3 notes!

Sennheiser: 3, 12, 18, 6, & 7 errors.

Overall, 4 errors vs. 45 errors in a quiet environment. I have been quite happy with the Sennheiser, but the Powermic results totally blew me away.

Coupled with the button functionality for navigating variable fields, etc. the productivity boost with the Powermic would be even more significant for me. My Sennheiser is over 2 years old and I have had to replace the audio jack that was performed by a Sennheiser authorized audio dealer, so the comparison might be a little unfair. Also, I would really have to repeat the test with the mikes and computers switched around to be more objective, but I was only trying to test for myself rather than convince anyone else, so your mileage may vary.

NM