Kleervox vs NoiseTorch-ng

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.

NoiseTorch-ng is a free, open-source Linux application that reduces microphone noise in real time. It uses RNNoise and works with PulseAudio or PipeWire, creating a virtual “Filtered Microphone” for applications such as OBS, Mumble, and Discord. The project describes setup as a two-click process and distributes the app as a small, statically linked binary. A Voice Activation Threshold can be set as high as 95%, or set to 0% to dampen noise without deactivating the microphone. Optional output filtering routes applications through a virtual “Filtered Headphones” device. Microphone filtering adds 10 ms of inherent latency; output filtering is approximately 100 ms with PulseAudio. The project reports a suspected update-server and repository breach, says no malicious code was found, and says updates are retrieved from GitHub releases. GitHub reports no SECURITY.md file or published security advisories. Troubleshooting guidance, including how to collect debug logs, is in the project wiki. The latest listed release is v0.12.2, released June 17.