I had the same experience, eBay suggests that I'll have a Jabra speakerphone in my mailbox tomorrow to try moving everything to a better audio setup. The software seems good but the audio performance is miserable on the preview device, you essentially have to be talking directly at the microphone from not more than a few feet away for anything to recognize.

Sadly, the Jabra (or any USB) audio device means I'll need to shift over to an rPi which comes with it's own lifecycle challenges.