Cam placement strategy & useful audio

I am deciding on IPC-HDW5231R-ZE vs IPC-HDW2231R-ZS in a couple locations on my new house. Seems the 2 big feature differences are audio and motorized zoom. I'm leaning toward the 5231, but I'd like to know how useful the audio is on this cam. How well does it pick up voice and from what distance? My placement strategy at this point is:

Location "A" (9' high): IPC-HDW5231R-ZE
Location "B" (16' high): IPC-HFW5231E-Z5
Location "C" (12' high): IPC-HDW5231R-ZE
Location "D" (12' high): IPC-HDW2231R-ZS

Am I on the right track here? I'm open to any suggestions on placement.

The both have motorized varifocal lenses.

Its very difficult to make out any conversation from people talking if they are not close to the cam, if there is a loud noise like a crash, gun shot or even birds chirping you will hear it

mycoma said:

Its very difficult to make out any conversation from people talking if they are not close to the cam, if there is a loud noise like a crash, gun shot or even birds chirping you will hear it

Click to expand...

That is what I suspected. Fair to say probably not very useful in my case?

The mic pickup in my cams, see below, all work just fine. You just need to turn off Noise Reduction in audio setup.

Study the cliff notes in the wiki at the top of the page.
And read my review here: Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal