AI is now good enough that a boomless headset can pass Microsoft's open-office microphone tests, but it has not beaten physics: a boom microphone close to your mouth still has more margin in genuinely loud rooms. The three flagships show the three approaches. The Jabra Evolve3 75 and 85 are fully boomless and rely on deep-neural-network ClearVoice. The HP Poly Focus 625 uses a visible hideaway boom with Acoustic Fence 2.0. The Yealink BH78 hides a retractable boom in the earcup and adds AI uplink noise cancellation. At SourceIT they cost S$360.00 (Evolve3 75), S$450.00 (Evolve3 85), S$329.23 (Focus 625) and S$318.60 (BH78 with base), prices as listed on 25 Oct 2026.
Three microphone approaches compared
| Spec | Jabra Evolve3 75 / 85 | HP Poly Focus 625 | Yealink BH78 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microphone design | Boomless | 70 mm hideaway boom, rotates 135° | Hidden retractable flexible boom |
| Microphones | 6 MEMS mics in the earcups | 6 mics: 4 for voice, 2 for ANC | 6 mics: 4 for AI uplink noise cancellation |
| Voice processing | Jabra ClearVoice, deep neural network | Acoustic Fence 2.0 | AI noise cancellation, up to 98% of background distraction removed (Yealink) |
| Open-office rating | Meets Microsoft Open Office requirements in Teams variants (Jabra) | Microsoft Teams Open Office (HP) | MS (Teams) variant with Teams button; no open-office figure published |
| Wearing style | 75 on-ear (180 g), 85 over-ear (220 g) | On-ear, 208 g | Over-ear, 245 g |
| SourceIT price | S$360.00 / S$450.00 | S$329.23 | S$318.60 with base |
Figures from Jabra, HP and Yealink product pages and spec sheets. Vendor accuracy and noise figures come from each vendor's own tests.
Why does a boom still matter?
Sound gets weaker quickly with distance. A boom puts the microphone a few centimetres from your lips, so your voice arrives much louder than the chatter behind you before any software runs. An earcup microphone is further away and hears more of the room, so the processing has to work harder to tell your voice from your neighbour's. That is why contact-centre headsets have kept booms for decades, and why Jabra kept a boom on its own Evolve3 65 and 45.
AI cleans the voice it can hear. A boom decides how much of your voice it hears in the first place.
How good is boomless AI now?
Much better than a few years ago. Jabra calls the boomless Evolve3 75 and 85 a significant step up from the boom-arm Evolve2 models they replace, and claims 96 per cent word accuracy across its test environments and 99 per cent in open offices. Microsoft's Open Office designation, which Jabra says the Teams variants meet, is defined as headsets that "pick up the voice of the headset user but don't transmit the sound of their neighbors". In a typical Singapore open-plan office, a boomless Evolve3 sounds clean to the person you are calling. The gap opens in harder places: a pantry with a coffee grinder, a site office, an MRT platform. The detailed head-to-head is in HP Poly Focus 625 vs Jabra Evolve3 75.
Poly's approach: a visible boom with Acoustic Fence 2.0
The HP Poly Focus 625 keeps a 70 mm boom that hides in the earcup when you are listening and swings down for calls. Acoustic Fence treats sound from outside a zone around your mouth as noise, and HP says version 2.0 further reduces nearby distracting sounds. You get the boom's distance advantage plus processing, with HP's Teams Open Office certification. The trade-off is a boom you must remember to lower.
Yealink's approach: hidden boom plus AI
The Yealink BH78 hides a flexible boom inside the earcup. Pull it out on a noisy call and you have a close microphone; leave it in and the headset looks boomless. Four of its six microphones run AI uplink noise cancellation, which Yealink says removes up to 98 per cent of background distraction. It is the most flexible design of the three, and the cheapest.
Which approach should your company choose?
- Quiet offices, home working, lots of camera time: boomless Jabra Evolve3 75 or Evolve3 85.
- Busy open-plan floors and shared spaces: a visible boom, the HP Poly Focus 625, or Yealink's on-ear BH74 at S$186.30.
- Mixed days, one headset for everything: the hidden-boom Yealink BH78.
- Contact centres: a boom, always. See The Best Headsets for Noisy Singapore Offices.
Remember that the microphone is only half of the noise story: ANC changes what you hear, not what others hear. That difference is explained in Why Your S$400 Headset Still Picks Up Background Noise. For the over-ear pair specifically, read Jabra Evolve3 85 vs Yealink BH78.
Buying in Singapore
SourceIT supplies Jabra, HP Poly and Yealink with local warranty and a GST invoice, and all the headsets above were in stock at the time of writing. Browse the Jabra Evolve3 series, HP Poly headsets, the Yealink BH series or Teams certified headsets. For a quotation, use Request for Quotation on the product page, call (65) 6978 3502, email Sales@sourceit.com.sg or use our contact page.
Frequently asked questions
Are boomless headsets good enough for business calls? In most offices and homes, yes. Jabra says its boomless Evolve3 75 and 85 Teams variants meet Microsoft's Open Office requirements. In very loud environments, a boom microphone still has the advantage.
Why do boom microphones block background noise better? Because the microphone sits close to your mouth, your voice arrives much louder than the surrounding noise before any processing starts.
Which headset has a hidden boom? The Yealink BH78 has a retractable boom inside the earcup, and the HP Poly Focus 625 has a hideaway boom that tucks into the earcup.
What does Microsoft's Open Office certification mean? Microsoft describes it as headsets that pick up the voice of the headset user but don't transmit the sound of their neighbours.
Which is cheapest of the three flagships? At SourceIT on 25 Oct 2026, the Yealink BH78 MS with charging base at S$318.60.
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Researched and verified by the SourceIT team for Singapore buyers.
