Database Users

[Q] Mic volume

I am having issues with the mic on the iconia. Volume is pretty low. While using gtalk the other side can barely hear me. Has anyone else been experiencing this?

Same here. Testing Fring and using the built-in mic or a headset mic, it is impossible to hear what I am saying. There is no mic adjustment in the Fring app and I can't find one in the tablet settings? Am I missing something that should be very obvious? How do you adjust microphone senstivity?

same problem with gtalk. It's sometime hard to hear what I say

I ve been having the same issues with gtalk. Havent tried any other voip app yet.
Mic works fine in voice recording apps though, so it can't be hardware related.
Maybe honeycomb issue??

Where are the mics?

i think the mic is atthe top of the screen in the crack dead center .click the vol up and click on the/pop up the middle i think is the mic volume .if/im/wrong sorry

I have the same problem on my galaxy tab 10.1 but mic volume seems low on all apps.

Just got the a500 and have experience similar results, mic volume is extremely low.
I have tried it with various voice apps, including gtalk, voice recorder, camcorder, etc, and the voice is really low.
Im begining to wonder that this is a hardware issue.
Is this issue consistent with all a500s? or only some models?

My mic is so low volume as to be virtrually useless. I tried plugging in an external mic and that was slightly better but not enough.
When using the voice recorder app I notice that the meter hardly moves off the stop, something wrong here.

I wonder if this issue is more common than it should be?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1162054

But some people here have said their mic is fine. I am going to check a few out in the shops and see if they are any better. Really, at the moment it's not suitable for skype or google talk which is what I got it for.

I still think its a honeycomb noise canceling issue. Plug In headphones while u record and u will see the difference.

I bought a second A500 yesterday and the microphone records my voice far better than the unit I've had for almost 2 weeks. With the old unit I can barely hear what I speak, but the new one I can hear myself clearly. Manufacturing date of the old one is may, the new one is manufactured in april. It did not get the 3.1 update yet so it's still running stock 3.01. One other thing I like about the new one I just got is that the volume buttons work a bit easier and don't require as much force to push them down.
Rob

silverball.slayer said:
I bought a second A500 yesterday and the microphone records my voice far better than the unit I've had for almost 2 weeks. With the old unit I can barely hear what I speak, but the new one I can hear myself clearly. Manufacturing date of the old one is may, the new one is manufactured in april. It did not get the 3.1 update yet so it's still running stock 3.01. One other thing I like about the new one I just got is that the volume buttons work a bit easier and don't require as much force to push them down.
Rob
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That's the key right there.
It's a software problem not a material one.
I experienced the exact same thing as you.
Bought a new tablet and tested the mic with stock 3.0.1. The volume was fine.
Updated to 3.1 and the volume was very low.

Well, my mic sucks in a big way. I tried many times to use google talk, tango and so on with horrible results. I have to yell like crazy and they can barely hear me.
So... as a lot of ppl are complaiing and it's a software problem, is it possible they do nothing to solve it????? It shouldn't be that difficult...

dominuspaulus said:
I am having issues with the mic on the iconia. Volume is pretty low. While using gtalk the other side can barely hear me. Has anyone else been experiencing this?
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Click to collapse
I opened up my acer and moved the microphone to the front because before when recordingi couldnt catch a sound coming from recording eg. a person talking.
Now I can at least hear the voices of the people im filming.
For gtalk and skype and stuff i use a headphone set with a mic via the headphones jack, much nicer.
Cheers!

Johnny0906 said:
I opened up my acer and moved the microphone to the front because before when recordingi couldnt catch a sound coming from recording eg. a person talking.
Now I can at least hear the voices of the people im filming.
For gtalk and skype and stuff i use a headphone set with a mic via the headphones jack, much nicer.
Cheers!
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You don't say things like these and not tell us the how's and the what's. For example, what headset did you use? How did you move the mic to front?
BTW, I'm on 3.1 and have never had an issue with the mic. Just did a recording while I was driving and talking. Still sounds pretty good to me.

goodintentions said:
You don't say things like these and not tell us the how's and the what's. For example, what headset did you use? How did you move the mic to front?
BTW, I'm on 3.1 and have never had an issue with the mic. Just did a recording while I was driving and talking. Still sounds pretty good to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is actually a thread further back if you bother to look that I opened and described everything and also uploaded a video to see the mic improvement.
Edit: Here is my thread, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1169050
Edit: Headset I used is a brand called EXIBEL Art.no 38-4061, cheap and works PERFECTLY I can hear and be heard as if in the room.

same issues. Sound seems to just stop as well after I use camcorder

Mine works well on any app except gtalk. Although I recently installed voodoo on my rooted Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the mic adjustments helped. Without Voodoo I usually just plug in headphones when I use gtalk and that solves the issue 100%.

Microphone Recording and Call sound

Anybody else got TERRIBLE sound when recording or using the A500 for VOIP calls or Skype whatever?
Really awful, and when recording you can hear you own voice clearly indicating the microphone is in front but why?
The recording image is pretty f-ing good! But sound is very disappointing... Is it possible to fix this? Or is a permanent issue?
Can anybody else comment on their recording quality?
Would be greatly appreciated, we gotto make the most of out Iconias right!

The microphone cuts-off everything above approx. 3.5kHz and the noise cancellation (2nd mic under the SDCard cover) seem to make things even worse. You can try to cover the 2nd mic with your fingertip.

I had a tablet that had a problem with the microphone. It worked ok for voice searches and recordings at the beginning, it never worked for skype or google talk video chats. The finger over the microphone thing worked for skype, not so much for google talk. After about a month it stopped working for everything and gave me an "audio connection" problem. Called acer, they said it was hardware related...they offered to fix it, but instead I brought it back to best buy and got a new one. The microphone works spectacularly now. If you can, bring it back and get a new one....

This is a BIG EPIC failure for Acer... I mean its such a small thing that they could have done better, nearly ALL tablets have decent mics...

I cant believe the mic on the transformer

Could some of you guys post a recording of your mic from the transformer. Like music or something. I just can't believe the horible mic quality

That's because it's not made for Drake to use in the studio. You can't really expect anything decent for a tablet at $400.00. You're looking at the wrong market, it's made for voice recognition and it works superb in combination with Google's Voice-related API's. Have you tried Voice Actions with this thing? It works near perfectly even with a ****ty voice.

It could use a boost though, the girlfriend has trouble hearing me when chatting. Ive thought about a plug in directional mic for that.
Just bought a $2 plug in mic for iphone that people said improved its capture of voice from a conference room. Hopefully it works because its about the size of a piece of candy, would be easy to carry for chatting.

The mic is, hardware-wise, the sole lemon for me on the Transformer. It's close to useless, because it is so insensitive.
Using Skype on the Transformer, I literally have to have the tablet within about a foot of me, and turned sideways so the mic points directly at me (and I can't see the screen). And it's not the specific tab -- I've got both 16GB and 32GB units, and the mic performance is equally terrible on both.
I'm hoping it turns out to be a firmware issue and the gain can be adjusted, either by Asus or a third party, because as-is it's simply not useful, and I can't really take advantage of basic OS features like voice search because of that. (And yes, Tubular, I've tried it. With my clearest possible voice, I have so far only been able to manage one successful search in total. 99% of the time it searches for completely the wrong thing, or nothing at all.)

knoxploration said:
The mic is, hardware-wise, the sole lemon for me on the Transformer. It's close to useless, because it is so insensitive.
Using Skype on the Transformer, I literally have to have the tablet within about a foot of me, and turned sideways so the mic points directly at me (and I can't see the screen). And it's not the specific tab -- I've got both 16GB and 32GB units, and the mic performance is equally terrible on both.
I'm hoping it turns out to be a firmware issue and the gain can be adjusted, either by Asus or a third party, because as-is it's simply not useful, and I can't really take advantage of basic OS features like voice search because of that. (And yes, Tubular, I've tried it. With my clearest possible voice, I have so far only been able to manage one successful search in total. 99% of the time it searches for completely the wrong thing, or nothing at all.)
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Sounds like a defect: the mic is bad, but not that bad. Can you RMA it?

Or just up the gain in Skype. Anyhow, people have been telling me I sound like I'm in a vaccum when I talk on Ventrilo, but it is to be expected of a mic on a tablet.

knoxploration said:
The mic is, hardware-wise, the sole lemon for me on the Transformer. It's close to useless, because it is so insensitive.
Using Skype on the Transformer, I literally have to have the tablet within about a foot of me, and turned sideways so the mic points directly at me (and I can't see the screen). And it's not the specific tab -- I've got both 16GB and 32GB units, and the mic performance is equally terrible on both.
I'm hoping it turns out to be a firmware issue and the gain can be adjusted, either by Asus or a third party, because as-is it's simply not useful, and I can't really take advantage of basic OS features like voice search because of that. (And yes, Tubular, I've tried it. With my clearest possible voice, I have so far only been able to manage one successful search in total. 99% of the time it searches for completely the wrong thing, or nothing at all.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have a defective unit. The microphone in the Transformer is similar to that on low-end netbooks, etc. It's made to work for voice chatting and for voice search. It will not record high end audio... However, plug in mics work, iirc.

I'm getting my Asus Transformer today. Given some of the manufacturing defect concerns, I've been starting a list of things to checkout when I get mine. I guess it's worth while to check to see that the mic works, at least OK enough for voice commands.

Tubular said:
That's because it's not made for Drake to use in the studio. You can't really expect anything decent for a tablet at $400.00. You're looking at the wrong market, it's made for voice recognition and it works superb in combination with Google's Voice-related API's. Have you tried Voice Actions with this thing? It works near perfectly even with a ****ty voice.
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Click to collapse
Yep, it shines where my cappy fails! Nice voice recognition.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

quarky42 said:
Sounds like a defect: the mic is bad, but not that bad. Can you RMA it?
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dorino1 said:
You have a defective unit. The microphone in the Transformer is similar to that on low-end netbooks, etc. It's made to work for voice chatting and for voice search. It will not record high end audio... However, plug in mics work, iirc.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the replies, but note that I have *two* Transformers (one early-production 16GB, one almost brand new 32GB) and both are identical in terms of recording levels.
With no case or anything to block the mic, Skype is usable so long as the microphone faces towards me and is within 1-2 feet, but if I turn the tablet so the screen faces towards me, the person I'm Skyping can no longer hear me properly.
Voice search is probably further complicated by my accent (somewhere between British, American, and Australian, and I use pronunciations from all three accents near-interchangeably). It is, in a word, useless. Well, perhaps worse than useless. But that's likely half down to the weak mic, and half down to my accent.
But I really don't think the mic in both of my units is faulty, tbh -- the audio is too similar in both, and they're not from the same production run.

Alright. I'm confused, though. Is it harder to hear in portrait (long end on top/bottom) or landscape? (short end on top/bottom)
Anyway, if you want better quality, attach a headset.

agree..the mic on the TF is ****...til I root, install chems kernel mod, install voodoo control, and volumn plus...now it just ok.. not good.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

dorino1 said:
Alright. I'm confused, though. Is it harder to hear in portrait (long end on top/bottom) or landscape? (short end on top/bottom)
Anyway, if you want better quality, attach a headset.
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Click to collapse
It's not portrait versus landscape, but rather, screen facing me, or screen facing to my left.
Imagine the TF sitting in front of you on a small table with dock attached, in netbook mode. Now imagine you've turned the whole thing 90 degrees so that the person sitting on the side of the table to your left can use it. That's the position I have to place the netbook in so that the mic can pick me up reasonably...
If I sit in front of the screen, the person I'm calling can barely hear me just two feet from my tablet (and as my long-suffering wife will tell you, I'm not a quiet speaker!) ;-) It's not specific to the person I'm calling -- I've tried doing a loopback test in Skype and even with the volume turned up all the way, I can hardly hear myself when sitting in front of the tab's screen.
Unfortunately I don't have the correct type of headset to test the mic jack. All my headsets either have separate mic / headphone cables, or a smaller size of jack.

Okay, I'm really pretty positive you have a bad unit, then. My mic at least works with the screen facing me!
Anyway, a coupler for dual 3.5mm headsets costs like 2 dollars

Thanks, guess I'll add it to my list of things to do -- call Asus and see if I need to get both tabs serviced...
That's immediately after I get my Creative speakers serviced. (Crackle on left channel.) And my Logitech mouse. (Left button double-clicks with a single click). And my Corsair power supply (started making a continuous ticking noise like a bearing's going).
*sigh* ;-)

has anyone tried using a bluetooth headset ? ive got a Nokia BH-109 paired with my TF, but no ones on skype for me to test it

dorino1 said:
You have a defective unit. The microphone in the Transformer is similar to that on low-end netbooks, etc. It's made to work for voice chatting and for voice search. It will not record high end audio... However, plug in mics work, iirc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why then would you include the ability to record hi-def video,with absolutely horrendously bad audio recording...I can't believe this Mic is not defective...RMAing back to Amazon for a new unit.
Chas

knoxploration is right. my tf mic is terrible. there's nothing wrong with it...just really hard to hear for people on the other end. I do the same thing and turn the tab to the side so i'm facing the mic. person on the other end hears me better but then they can't see me. i guess it's time to use one of those usb ports for a 3rd party mic. anyone tested any?

[Q] Microphone and Speech Input Questions

I have the OG Droid as phone and have gotten quite used to speech input, particularly with Vlingo. THe recognition is surprisingly good.
So I was disappointed (probably my only disappointment) when the speech input on my A500 wasn't producing equivalent results.
Part of the problem, I thought, was that Vlingo doesn't run yet on the A500. Part of the problem might be the tiny little microphone in the crevice between glass and frame (I think), which is coverec by the Acer case that came with the A500.
So I tried my Motorola S305 stereo headphones on bluetooth and imagine it was a little better, but still not like the old droid.
So I am wondering if someone can guide me on what to do to improve speech input on the A500. Also find myself wondering if there is a really good headset (stereo + good mic) that works well with voice input.

I'm having similar mic issues. I find the mic to be sub par in talk and absolutely awful with skype. So far after almost 2 months solid use this I my only gripe with this lovely device. I'd also love to have a recommendation on a headset to use with the A500.
Thanks.

I've been wondering this too... for use with GTalk and/or GrooVe IP.

mic is sub standard.
i got my a500 replaced and found the mic on the new one much more effective.

Where is the microphone exactly?

If you hold the tablet with the multiport at the bottom, the mic is just above the screen where the black glass part of the bezel meets the metal part... there's a tiny hole you can see there, and that's the mic. I vaguely remember reading in the dev section that someone took it apart and there is some noise cancelling thingy that's causing issues. I even tried recording using a high quality recording app like PCM Recorder (set at 44.1KHz), and it sounds like it was recorded off of someone's old landline telephone... kind of a shame.

excuse my stupidity but I still can't find the mic.
By "multiport" you mean the dock port at the bottom?

ACER A500 Microphone Fix?

Hi, guys Ive been looking for microphone fix on my A500 , when i record any video it has this loud background noise...which in fact my room is silent , also when I'm recording videos outside & using Skype . Im using HC 3.2.1 rooted with thor's CMW ver 1.5 . I been searching the forum for a fix but i cant find it or so as I read that they will fix this issue on HC 3.2, but still i get this issues . Is this a Hardware problem or OS issue?
Also can I still return this tablet to walmart & get a refund? I already exchange the first 1 cuz It got a charging issue. SO basically I'm returning an exchange tablet. It hasn't been 14 days yet. as they mentioned for returns & refunds.
Thanks.

hatyrei said:
Hi, guys Ive been looking for microphone fix on my A500
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Funny, I was coming here to ask for help about something similar...
In my case, I have a refurbished A500 which has been awesome so far, with the exception of the microphone. It records terribly, lots of noise and distortion in any recording I make (using Recorder as the test app I made a short .amr recording which I attach 7zip-compressed).
A friend has an A500, and it doesn't seem to display this issue. While it's no deal-breaker (I can live without recording audio...playback of tv shows loaded on the card works better-than-fine!), I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to fix it, or at least make it a little less...noisy.

I believe the culprit has to do with the speakers creating feedback. The workaround is to use headphones. Hope this works for you.

Take a look here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1065219

tabasco22 said:
Take a look here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1065219
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Click to collapse
I did read that entire thread, which only tells me there are multiple unrelated issues around audio recording on the A500...these issues seem to get all mixed-together in that thread, with people who only care about Skype focusing on that and cross-talking to people who have completely different recording issues. I was hoping this thread could avoid the whole need-to-use-Skype distraction and focus on the specific issue of seemingly over-driven recordings. (With the refurb, I'm also out of the whole keep-complaining-to-acer-until-they-do-something-to-fix-it focus there seems to be on that thread. I can't really complain, and any warranty I had expired a while ago.)
The earlier suggestion to use a headset is, however, something I should have considered first (even read in the earlier Skype-centric thread), and am a little embarrassed I didn't. Sometime this weekend I'll pick up a cheap 3.5 mic/headphone set and see if that makes any difference. If it does, and the recordings though it are cleaner, I can be more comfortable it will work for one thing I care about...using the A500 with the SquareUp CC processor.

Mic - Solution for me.
Problem: Microphone recordings sound terrible. Soft, Choppy, Mechanical, like a bad cell call, bathroom (NOT the severe helicopter sound as others have reported). My hypothesis like others have suggested, seems to be noise cancellation issues. Especially since the issues vary app to app. These mics are right beside each other and I assume they're pretty much hearing the same thing, and the rear is trying to cancel what it hears, which is the same as the front! End result being filtering what it hears, ie filtering everything? FAIL.
Test 1: Using Recorder and Skype Test call, I tested different distances talking to the front/back, covering front mic, covering back mic, case on, case off, headphones plugged in/out, etc. In some instances you could hear some, and other hear nothing, some sound ok, some sound horrible. I wasn't satisfied with ANY.
Test 2: Popped off back of tablet and disconnected REAR facing mic. They are side/side, make sure you disconnect the correct one, the one with the diaphragm pointing out. Simple connector. Then tried Recorder/Skype Test call and both sounded Excellent. I have not tried a call with Skype, just the test. EDIT: Tested a real Skype call last night. No sound issues on my end or other end.
Conclusion: Removal of rear mic provided the best quality. There is zero filtering/cancellation/etc.

Gotta try this
Hmm!
Should of thought of this myself. Going to give it shot and post back later!
Unhooked the rear mike --it helps the front m ike is usable now. Not perfect but works.
So for me
1 Run Flexreaper ICS by Civato = better mike
2 Drill hole for front mike = not as muffled
3 Disconnect rear mike= almost as good as a phone but not as sensitive.
Okay on recording and search but Skype still noisy without headset.
Damn connectors were a pain to unhook.

appoaf said:
Problem: Microphone recordings sound terrible. Soft, Choppy, Mechanical, like a bad cell call, bathroom (NOT the severe helicopter sound as others have reported). My hypothesis like others have suggested, seems to be noise cancellation issues. Especially since the issues vary app to app. These mics are right beside each other and I assume they're pretty much hearing the same thing, and the rear is trying to cancel what it hears, which is the same as the front! End result being filtering what it hears, ie filtering everything? FAIL.
Test 1: Using Recorder and Skype Test call, I tested different distances talking to the front/back, covering front mic, covering back mic, case on, case off, headphones plugged in/out, etc. In some instances you could hear some, and other hear nothing, some sound ok, some sound horrible. I wasn't satisfied with ANY.
Test 2: Popped off back of tablet and disconnected REAR facing mic. They are side/side, make sure you disconnect the correct one, the one with the diaphragm pointing out. Simple connector. Then tried Recorder/Skype Test call and both sounded Excellent. I have not tried a call with Skype, just the test. EDIT: Tested a real Skype call last night. No sound issues on my end or other end.
Conclusion: Removal of rear mic provided the best quality. There is zero filtering/cancellation/etc.
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Click to collapse
I did and I agree this is a fix if you want to use recorder, Skype, talk, tango, etc. But I also learned to forget using the video camera UNLESS you have it using the rear camera (this is one you use by default when you Skype). Looks like it uses the microphone that points in the direction of the active camera.
So I would suspect the noise cancelling algorithm settings are to blame for poor sound recordings.

I solve this issue by using my stereo earphone with mic that came with my Nokia phone. I have tried a bluetooth stereo headset with mic and another wired earbuds with mic, there was either still a lot of noise or the sound level was very low. Basically, it is the same as using a headset. Finally I found one earphone with mic that works well. I actually have two of the same earbuds from 2 identical Nokia 5230. I tested them on two Iconia A500 with voice chat and video chat, it works very well both ways. I have also tried to turned off the Dolby Mobile as suggested by someone. It actually makes it worse and the sound level went down a lot.

acer a501 microphone fix
hi all
today i finally got to the bottom of the microphone issue
versions 3.x had some issues with the mic that cant be fixed - tried different internal and external mics but no good - i thought it was a hardware issue
and not able to solve but after ota update of ics the external mic is perfect - crystal clear and no noise and heaps of level.
the internal mic is crap so i decided to change the microphone with anything i could find - it has to be electret mic.
I had a few lying around and some worked well and some did not - i eventually found one that worked really well will heaps of level - the
only prob was that it was twice the size of the original.
i had to cut some of the plastic away but eventually got it installed.
The internal mic works great now - much better than the muffled one that came with the unit.
I left the second mic connected as it seems to make no difference in or out.
So what i have found -
firmware on 3.x no good for mic
ics makes mic work well if you use exeternal.
internal mic - get rid of it as it is useless.
hope this helps someone as i spent lots of time trying to fix this

OK but...
jzaiter said:
hi all
today i finally got to the bottom of the microphone issue
versions 3.x had some issues with the mic that cant be fixed - tried different internal and external mics but no good - i thought it was a hardware issue
and not able to solve but after ota update of ics the external mic is perfect - crystal clear and no noise and heaps of level.
the internal mic is crap so i decided to change the microphone with anything i could find - it has to be electret mic.
I had a few lying around and some worked well and some did not - i eventually found one that worked really well will heaps of level - the
only prob was that it was twice the size of the original.
i had to cut some of the plastic away but eventually got it installed.
The internal mic works great now - much better than the muffled one that came with the unit.
I left the second mic connected as it seems to make no difference in or out.
So what i have found -
firmware on 3.x no good for mic
ics makes mic work well if you use exeternal.
internal mic - get rid of it as it is useless.
hope this helps someone as i spent lots of time trying to fix this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HoneyComb 3.2 disconnected the rear microphone, Resulted in Better Quality without helicopter noise specially better for skype Etc.
Video recording still Just hardly acceptable. but quality is still bad.
Wont buy from acer anymore.