What is the best SIP Conference phone with Trixbox
Submitted by dkhazan on Mon, 02/04/2008 - 9:48am.
We are in the process of setting up a small office. We are planning on using Trixbox and Linksys SPA941 phones. For the conference room we need a decent but not very expensive conference phone that will work well with the Trixbox and Linksys phones. Any suggestions greatly appreciated...
My advice would be:a) use
Mon, 02/04/2008 - 5:31pm
My advice would be:
a) use aastra phones instead of the linksys, aastra have always been great to me. The linksys i have used have been rubbish, including the 941, my mate bought 2 which i set up for him just before i bought my aastra 480i's. i would never buy the 941's. i have a 57i sitting on my desk at the moment. i was going to list some good and bad points, but it would take too long. You will just have to trust me. In my experience the aastra's, and im sure things like snom and polycom are all going to be a million times better than the linksys.
b) for a conference phone i would look at the polycom, try and pick one up on ebay.
Aastra
Mon, 02/04/2008 - 5:38pm
I like my Aastra phones as well I have never had any problems with them, Polycom is good but no NAT or STUN support and I have not seen where they are going to, they can also be a pain in the arse setting them up at times. The linksys phones are better then the Grandstream but not by much. I have the 480i CT and I love it, my partner and I will only sell Aastra phones.
Good luck.
I have never had any issues with any of the Linksys
Mon, 02/04/2008 - 8:19pm
9xx IP Phones and have never had any complaints from my customer base either - which to me is the main point anyway.
I personally think that they are a classy looking (not toy-like like some) phone that have enough features, good sound quality and reliable for the price.
Am I missing something here?
Cheers
Garry
Conference Phone
Mon, 02/04/2008 - 8:31pm
I am ok with the Linksys product becouse I have already set these up before and the quality was ok. The issue is we are now looking for a conference room phone... Like a polycom. However I am not sure what is the best way to set this up or the model to get.
The polycom 4000 SIP model is expensive, so I was wondering if someone had found a cheaper option?
I love the Linksys SPA942.
I
Mon, 02/04/2008 - 8:49pm
I love the Linksys SPA942.
I did a job with about 125 of these, and they worked so well.
We got them dropshipped; and i think 2 in the entire 125 had to be sent back - which they accommodated and overnighted us new ones.
They provision without a problem, you can update the firmware at night, and they look and work like nice business phones.
I like to use polycom conference phones. They're popular all over, cost about 500-600 - but sound amazing. They pick up voices, and sounds very well and project the caller into the whole room. You probably can get these off eBay for 100-200 bucks.
I have yet to find anything
Mon, 02/04/2008 - 8:56pm
I have yet to find anything that is louder or clearer than the Aastra 57i - tested them with cleints against all the other major brands, and it even beats the Polycom handsets - if you got a Polycom conference phone, then that is the ultimate, but as far as handsets go, the speaker on the 57i gets a few db higher, and maintains clarity - nothing under $500 can beat it, and it is far lower in cost.
For a true conference phone, the Sound Station series cant be beat:
http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/products/voice/small_medium_confere...
The IP4000 has been around for a while, and they sound great, the rest on that page are analog sets.
hmmm this brings to mind:
http://www.trixbox.org/wiki/Best_Phones
thats risky - some people
Tue, 02/05/2008 - 10:24am
thats risky - some people have good luck with devices like Linksys SPA3000, but it seems that most have trouble with things like DTMF, echo, gain - and thats just with simple telephone usage. They can sometimes take a lot of "tuning" to make them work to your desires.
I am sure some people have tried that, but its probably pretty rare. So your walking down a "test at your own luck" path.
The linksys are probably the most popular, like the PAP2 (make sure its unlocked), or SPA series - make sure it has an FXS port. I think asterisktutorials.com has a setup guide, and voxilla.com has some real nice auto-configurators for these devices.
You might also check out that clearone that Andy mentioned, havent tried one myself, but saw them at a tradeshow, look decent, if its in the conference phone market, it must be at least a bit decent.
The ClearOne MAXAttach IP
Tue, 02/05/2008 - 3:57pm
The ClearOne MAXAttach IP looks like a full conference room setup rather than a simple conference phone. It appears that you can set up multiple speakers around the room to broadcast audio and multiple microphones for the different participants. This looks like overkill for most simple conference room setups where people are just looking for a phone in the middle of the table. But if you have the money, it looks pretty nice.
It's a shame the Polycom SoundStation IP 4000 costs nearly as much.
Typically the IP4000 is
Tue, 02/05/2008 - 10:21pm
Typically the IP4000 is around $150 more than the ClearOne - we just have a special going right now. The ClearOne can be used standalone (ie their "Max IP" product) or with others (ie their "MaxAttach IP" product). I noticed a typo in the price though - I've adjusted it. Sorry about that.
We only use Polycom
Thu, 02/07/2008 - 10:45am
We only use Polycom conference phones (analog and SIP) and the sound quality is excellent. if you have a larger room you can add on the extension mics as well. In addition, there's a lapel mic you can get for a presenter. They are expensive, but they work really well.
We have several older analog polycoms connected using analog/SIP adapters and they work fine.
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2008-02-04