For this project, I had Jeremy Sonpar read an excerpt from the Return of the King. I recorded it twice: the first time the mic was about 6 inches away from Jeremy's face, and the second time the mic was around 18 inches away. While the quality of both recordings was pretty good, the closer recording has a much clearer, fuller sound. It sounds like Jeremy could be standing in front of you, while the second recording is clearly a recording, as his voice sounds a little echo-ey and distant. As far as I can tell, there is no aspect of the further recording that is superior to the closer recording .Both recordings had very minimal to no background noise.