Tom, Noise levels you described in your home office are what I would call quiet. However, it has been my experience that even in low noise levels active noise canceling or good noise canceling microphones are more accurate than non good noise canceling microphones. Martin Markoe, eMicrophones, Inc. The best microphones for Speech Recognition See us at: http://www.emicrophones.com/index.asp New to SR? Read "Mac Key Steps to High Speech Recogntion Accuracy:" http://www.emicrophones.com/docDetails.asp?DocumentID=39