5442 sound quality

Gyula614

Gyula614

Young grasshopper
Mar 28, 2023
75
23
Hungary
Hi,

I've tried few Dahua cameras. Most of them were 5442.
The quality at night is outstanding. But I'm not satisfied with the sound quality.
Also have tried many Hikvision cameras before. Their night image is crap compared to 5442 but the sound is better.
They also had various sound quality but I would say all of them had better sound than 5442.
Even the very cheap and old ones. I'm not sure if I missed something.
The 5442 has internal mic. Configured to AAC, 100 % microphone volume and no noise filtering.
So I think these are the best settings for volume and clarity.
But its sound is very dull. Interpretable only if somebody is shouting. The sensitivity is very poor and the details are lost.
Do you know any issue that could improve the audio sensitivity to a clear normal range?

Thanks,
Gyula
 
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I'm very satisfied with the video quality of Dahua cameras, but Unfortunately not so much with the sound quality and audio sensitivity as well unless the person is within 10 feet of the camera.

But you can try lower the microphone volume to around 80-90% and see if if the quality is better. At 100% the volume is louder but quality of the sound actually degrade and not as clear to me.
 
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I agree that the sound/audio is somewhat disappointing from any Dahua IP camera. Indeed follow the advice given with NR off and reduced mic volume gain, within the direct camera audio settings. DMSS app may also have it's own "NR" setting, that needs to be deactivated.
 
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I use 7616 Hikvision NVRs and BlueIris. The quality is the same on both. Not using DMSS. AAC is at 48 kHz and maximal biteate.
The problem is that it's very quiet and lacking most details and sound. It becomes clear around 80 dB SPL.
Like it's applying "noise reduction" anyway, regardless of NR settings, and that't offset +60dB from where it should operate.
So an alternative FW that just got rid of any DSP on sound except the compression would be the solution.
Or is there a known hardware modification to help, like remove dampening material from before the microphone? Or replacing the mic. Or if there's an external mic. connector on the board I might try disassembly and connection.
Recently just tried a 40 $ motion sensor camera and that's sound was also outstanding.
So the Dahua sound problem might be FW based. I suspect that too many things done on the audio signal and they are faulty at some point(s). So the algorithm they apply is just faulty by design. The easiest way would be just removing any audio DSP from FW except the compression..
 
^^^^
This

The 3449 TIOC PRO dual mics are very good, yes the 5442 audio pickup is meh
 
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Great. I try the bullet then and may put in locations that cover the audio area.
Did you refer to the big 5442E-ZE and bigger bullets 5442H-ZHE or to the small ones 5442T-ASE, 5442E-ASE?
Do you think the TiOC pro is comparable in night vision?
From 3449 model number it may be a white light version. If it's the HDW3449H-AS-PV model then it has 1/2.7" sensor.
 
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Just tested three cameras. HDW5842T-ZE-S2, HDW5442T-ZE-S2, HDW5842T-ZE-S3. They are not bad.
I remembered the HDW5842T-ZE-S2 is silent. Now with ambient noise it really blocks details. And it's the most silent from the three.
The HDW5842T-ZE-S3 is comparable to a good sounding Hikvision camera just there's an annoying continuous mid frequency beeping noise when using AAC. It's not present with G711.
The HDW5442T-ZE-S2 doesn't have the midrange noise with AAC. A bit more silent than the HDW5842T-ZE-S3 but similarly detailed. So overally good.
Will test how it works with high SPL, when dogs bark later on.
 
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Any experience with HDW5449H-ASE-D2?
I have a few of that model and just have a fading memory that indoor sound was good.
Should try it again sometime but the cameras are far from my current place.
That's an interesting model btw. Inside the two separate cameras have different aperture, and also getting good focus for both by factory calibration can be an issue.
But fusing color and I/R night vision pixelwise is a great idea.
At one point I thought that was the perfect solution.
 
It sounded good on paper.
I gave mine away
 
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Keep in mind, the quality of audio can be greatly affected based upon the speakers you are using to listen to the audio.
Best to have a speaker system that also has a separate subwoofer for bass.
Many good speaker systems available for computers. This can make or break your goal for good camera audio.
Built-in speakers in Laptops are a horrible way to try to listen to voices on a recording.
I have listened to voice's and could understand what was being said from folks standing 50-60 ft away from the cam.
With this in mind, I have no complaints about Dahua's camera sound.

See a speaker suggested system here
 
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looney2ns said:
Keep in mind, the quality of audio can be greatly affected based upon the speakers you are using to listen to the audio.
Best to have a speaker system that also has a separate subwoofer for bass.
Many good speaker systems available for computers. This can make or break your goal for good camera audio.
Built-in speakers in Laptops are a horrible way to try to listen to voices on a recording.
I have listened to voice's and could understand what was being said from folks standing 50-60 ft away from the cam.
With this in mind, I have no complaints about Dahua's camera sound.

See a speaker suggested system here
Click to expand...
You are right that it's much better to use a good sound system than a simple notebook.
To maximize it, I use headphones if something is of interest.
Headphones may even sound better than Hi-Fi speakers since each side uses a single full-range speaker.
But to hear every critical detail, you may still need a headphone amplifier.
To make it work, it's crucial to make sure the FW doesn't apply any noise cancellation, as those are the exact sound range you need to hear.
And also as much important not to filter out any part of the audible range by physical methods or electrical filters.

The Dahua cameras I tried were suspicious in sight of the latter, because they had the same muffled sound quality in AAC than in G.711.
So it seemed like frequencies above a few kHz were just missing, as a reason for muffled sound.

It was not the case with Hikvision cameras. On them AAC sounded noticeably cleaner than G.711, and neither of them had muffled sound.
 
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