This application discusses among other things apparatus and methods for optimizing speech recognition at a far-end device. In an example, a method can include establishing a link with a far-end communication device using a near-end communication device, identifying a context of the far end communication device, and selecting one audio processing mode of a plurality of audio processing modes at the near-end communication device, the one audio processing mode associated with the identified context of the far-end device, and configured to reduce reception error by the far-end communication device of audio transmitted from the near-end communication device.