Elgato Voice Focus vs Kleervox

Elgato Voice Focus is an AI-powered audio effect for cleaning a user’s microphone during streaming, recording, meetings, video editing, music production, and podcasting. It targets background noise, room reverb, and echo while preserving vocal warmth and detail. Elgato says its models reconstruct missing vocal frequencies, and one slider ranges from light processing to full processing. The standalone plugin is VST3 for Windows and AU for macOS, working in software that hosts those effects, including streaming tools, video editors, and DAWs. Named integrations include OBS Studio, Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, Logic, Pro Tools, FL Studio, and Audacity. Zoom, Teams, and Slack require routing through Wave Link. Voice Focus processes only the user’s microphone. Processing occurs on-device in real time, without cloud transmission, recording, or model training. The standalone lifetime license costs 49.99 USD as a one-time purchase, with three total activations; Wave Link includes it free for listed Wave devices.

Kleervox reduces background noise and speaker echo during calls using real-time processing on the device. Its neural noise cancellation separates speech from sounds such as keyboards, traffic, fans, and chatter, while echo cancellation reduces a caller’s voice leaking from speakers back into the microphone. It works as a virtual microphone in apps that let users select a microphone, including Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Slack, and OBS. The maker says microphone audio, recordings, and cleaned output are not uploaded, stored, or inspected. Its privacy policy also lists collection of Google sign-in details, usage metrics, installer activity, account state, sign-in history, website and demo analytics, and limited billing data. Free provides one hour of cancellation per day; afterward the microphone works without cancellation until local midnight. New accounts receive a seven-day Pro trial after first successful desktop use, with no card required. Downloads are available for Windows 10, Windows 11, and Linux; macOS is described as coming soon. Windows setup uses VB-CABLE, while Linux creates the virtual microphone automatically.