| Quality Microphone for aftermarket Android CarPlay | |
Posted in "General" as this is not Range Rover model specific....
If you are having quality issues with your hands free microphone then read on, if not don't waste 10minutes of your life reading this....
All the Android aftermarket head units I have seen for the L322 and L405 have an option of a remote microphone that can be hard wired into the unit and put in your favourite place, the top of the "A" pillar or by the interior mirror seem a good place.
There are also some, my L405 Merryway is one, that don't have a built in microphone and you have to use a remote one..
The ones that come with the head units are cheap and about as useful as a chocolate teapot, the quality is usually very poor...
Apparently the units with a built in microphone usually have a setting to turn off the internal microphone, this setting does nothing at all and then the unit uses the remote one AND internal one, this exasperates the issue and the quality is even worse.. You have to isolate the internal one by cutting through it's path on the printed circuit board that most are fixed to, or totally isolate it with hot glue over the front, or similar.
I've been hunting for an alternative and finally seem to have found one that has built in self cancelling and is of good quality and actually works..
It's the
Olympus ME-52 3.5 mm Monaural Wired Microphone available from Amazon for £21 at present...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000MYPPPE?ref...asin_title
 | | Click image to enlarge |
That's about four times the price of the ones supplied, but works spot on with my head unit, so good value.
It comes with a one and a half mtr lead which is too short to reach to the top of the "A" pillar,
I bought a UGREEN 3.5mm Extension Cable 6.6FT Stereo Audio Auxiliary Jack Extender Lead Headphone Aux Extension Cord Male to Female 2MTR, again from Amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LM4ON2E?ref...e&th=1
This on it's own was long enough to reach the top of the "A" pillar but I like mine just above the top of the interior mirror, and the clasp that came with it clipped to the rear mirror plastic trim, so I used both leads.
So if people keep saying "what" and "I can't hear you" and "you've got your head in a bucket" then maybe it's time to change to one of these.....
There is a cheaper way, use the original hands free kit that comes as standard in Fatties but I like using Siri, via CarPlay, to make calls using voice commands and that doesn't work with the original setup.... 
Come on, admit it, who hasn't got a microphone issue and is still reading this.....  Pete
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2014 L405 Autobiography SDV8 4.4 Loire Blue Ebony interior
-Click here for Thread-
2012 L322 Autobiography 5.0 Supercharged Ipanema Sand Sold
2011 L322 Vogue SE 4.4 TDV8 Baltic Blue. Sold
2002 L322 Vogue 4.4 V8 Epson Green (Fatty Offroader) Sold
-Click here for Project Fatty off roader-
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22nd Aug 2025 1:48pm
