Long-term lurker surfacing
I find it hard to believe that with all the highly qualified expert sound technicians they have at the BBC they wouldn't be able to manage what science fiction fans have known how to do for years -- record people talking on their home computers with a link over the network, and then splice it together into conversations which sound as if everyone were in the same room
The difficulty here is that all those people are recording in different rooms, or sheds, or home offices, in different acoustics, albeit with proper microphones supplied by the Beeb. Because of that problem with the sound, nothing is 'broadcast quality', the term for what we usually hear, ie the very highest standard of radio sound (unless any of those people actually has a fully soundproofed professional home studio, not impossible if they do voiceovers on the side, but unlikely for everyone).
Editing different participants in a conversation together isn't difficult - it's all done digitally anyway - but making it sound convincingly as if they're all talking face-to-face, as it would if they were grouped around mics in a properly equipped studio, would be a challenge. You only have to look at the photo someone linked on the Other Thread of 'Ed's' home set-up - in a back room, laptop on the ironing board, clothes-rail along one wall, uncurtained window to the side. He'd need to block that window for a start, eg with a duvet or a mattress. Ambient noise around the house - and outside it - could be a problem. He'd have to get his voice level right, in scenes where he might have a wide dynamic range (from whispering to shouting). There are myriad technical considerations that actors normally don't even have to think about, because the studio managers are taking care of that for them; they just need to concentrate on acting.
Then imagine that some of the older actors, who may have very little technical savvy and may not be confident computer users, or just can't get the hang of it (which is fair enough - they wouldn't normally need to), have to get up to speed and do what studio managers train for years to do.
It's asking quite a lot of them, really!
I'm interested to hear how it does sound, when they eventually go to the home-recorded episodes. Possibly I'm the only one who's quite looking forward to it, out of sheer curiosity 