iPhone 16 Pro Max and Audio Mix -is there another way?

Hands up if you remember the iPhone 16 Pro Max launch last September at Apple's Glowtime event.

I sure as hell do — as much as anything because I had a sponsor breathing down my neck to get a video out the same night — but that is another story.

At that event, we got revisions to the Apple Watch Ultra, a supposedly new Apple Watch 10, and a makeover to the AirPods range, but the star was always going to be the new iPhone 16.

At this point, Apple is kind of doomed with the release of each year's new iPhone; enough is never enough, and there will always be haters. The popular rhetoric is that there was nothing new on the latest iPhone — but you know what, I'd beg to differ.

Promises…

If we're expecting a new phone every year — or, to put a slightly more sinister spin on it, if Apple's board is expecting a new phone every year, then at this point, we have to assume that we are at the point of low returns.

We are and have been for a few years now at peak smartphone. How much more can we expect from our phones? All improvements across all manufacturers are now going to be relatively iterative and minor compared to the golden years of the mid-2000s when there was still so much to be explored.

I have nothing against Samsung at all and believe their devices to be right up there with the best, but I'd be willing to bet at Unpacked in a few weeks, all we'll get is maybe a larger, brighter screen, thinner bezels, and more megapixels crammed into the camera — oh, and more AI features that we'll forget are there after a month or two.

It's the nature of the beast, you see.

iPhone 16 Pro Max — all change

Looking at this year's 16 Pro Max, though — they, too, managed to give us a larger display and thinner bezels. There are better thermals, which in turn have helped with better battery life. Generally, now I only charge once a day unless I'm hammering the camera. It's also worth noting that these improvements with the battery have come about whilst running betas, which historically are famed for hitting the battery hard.

There have been subtle changes, inside and out, in the materials used between the 15 and iPhone 16 Pro Max and even minor tweaks to the body as well — with the edges being slightly more rounded off. And that's just year over year. If you are coming from an iPhone 12 or 13, which is more than possible, then the changes will be even more noticeable.

The cameras, although generally the same, have seen year-on-year improvements, particularly with the popular ultra wide-angle lens, which is now a 48MP unit.

Video-wise, the biggest news was that we now have 4K/120p on this phone, and also we can pause recordings.

And yes, the rollout of Apple Intelligence has been a shambolic mess, but I'm not that worried about it. I've not even tried Genmoji or Image Playground — two features clearly not aimed at me and are exactly the kind of useless AI gimmicks that will hardly ever get used. Writing Tools have been nowhere near as good as I'd hoped they'd be, and of course, we are still lumbered with the old, dumb version of Siri.

The jury is out on Visual Look Up. I've had mixed results with it — when it works, it gives me decent feedback on the building or business I'm looking at, but it still misses too frequently — but long-term, I reckon it could be handy.

The best of the Apple Intelligence tools that we have so far has been in the Photos App. Clean Up does a pretty reasonable job of removing unwanted people or objects in photos. It's not as good as the tools found in Lightroom or Photoshop, but then again, they are pro tools that not everyone has access to.

Let's be hearing it then!

The biggest changes for me at the event, though, were the improvements that Apple was making to the iPhone 16 Pro Max in the audio & mics department.

The mics are hugely important when it comes to recording either Voice Notes, FaceTime calls or, most notably when it comes to video recordings. The iPhone has almost unanimously been recognised as having the best set of video cameras and tools of any phone.

When Apple brought ProRes and Log to the iPhone, it kind of left the competition for dust. I use both those features loads, and Apple is clearly trying to position the iPhone 16 Pro Max as a professional alternative to expensive dedicated mirrorless cameras and to that end, the mics needed to be improved to match.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max has an extra microphone — it now has four, and they claim that it also has a lower noise floor. But where Apple had hoped to make a giant step forward was with the new Audio Mix Features. With the help of some heavy machine learning, Apple announced three new features.

There was In Frame, which isolates the person on camera; Studio Mix, which emulates the effect of recording in a professional studio, even attempting to eliminate reverb and Cinematic Mix, which brings the talents' voices to the front and pushes to the background other distracting sounds & noises.

No matter how much of a step forward they have made, though, there are a couple of limiting factors. The moment you start to push any noise reduction with audio, it can very quickly become artefacty and unnatural. The answer is to always record the best audio you can at source.

Also, you can only use these Audio Mix features in the native camera app. As far as I have found, you can't use them if you record ProRes/Log, and you can't even use them in Apple's first-party Final Cut Camera app. All that means is that they are trying to give you the best audio on the less-than-premium video options.

You are also tied to being near to your iPhone 16 Pro Max — mic proximity is a truism of any decent audio.

But, there is an answer…

Hollyland Lark M2S

Right off the bat, let me tell you this is not a paid piece.

Hollyland did send me a review unit but has no idea what I am writing, and they have no editorial charge over it — I'm giving my thoughts firsthand after spending a few days using their latest wireless Lavalier mic.

This is the fifth generation of the Lark series of microphones. The idea has always been to bring good audio to everyone in a simple-to-use unit with as little fuss as possible whilst making it as user-friendly as it can.

Coming from the Apple ecosystem, where design and materials are core — the case is a little plasticy but it feels strong. The same goes for the mic components inside. There is no tasteful brushed aluminium — but it all feels fit for the task.

In the kit I have, the Mini Combo, which costs $139, there are two mics and two receivers — one for the iPhone 16 Pro Max and one that sits in the cold shoe on a camera. The charging case, which has a 30-hour life, acts similarly to that of an AirPod case and will charge the mics and receivers inside. I've been using the case and mics on and off now for about three days, and I've not had to charge them — so the battery life seems decent. It's early days, I know, but they seem ok. The claimed working time from Hollyland is 9 hours per mic with noise cancelling switched on.

Hollyland also includes a USB-C to lightning cable, a USB-C to USB-A cable and a 3.5mm TRS to TRS cable for your camera. There's a carry case and a pair of dead cats or windshields.

The one cable that's missing that seems an oversight, though, is a USB-C to USB-C cable. The case is USB-C, so it just seems odd not to have a dedicated USB-C cable.

With the receiver that goes into your iPhone, there is also a port that you can charge your phone with — and guess what…it's USB-C! Hollyland — please give us a USB-C to USB-C cable next time.

Setting up

That was easy beyond belief.

The transmitters (or mics) and receivers turn on as soon as you open the case. I don't know if I was lucky, but for me, everything paired automatically — it was almost too good to be true.

If you are using the mics with your iPhone, there is a LarkSound app that gives you the option of setting the Noise Cancellation, volume adjustment, mono or stereo recording and scheduling a power-off time. It'll also show you how much charge your lav mic has and whether you want to use your phones speaker as a playback monitor.

Setting up the receiver on my Canon was equally as simple. Turn your camera's mic down to its lowest setting and then increase the volume with the Lark receiver — it has three settings which you can lock once set. As I mentioned, the camera receiver sits in the cold shoe mount and connects via the 3.5mm TRS cable they supply.

Design

One of the major differences you'll immediately notice with this latest version is the Lark M2S lav mic itself is even smaller and even lighter than before.

Whereas the disk-shaped mic before used to drag down clothing, this new version, with its titanium clip, fits onto your collar and is far less noticeable — if that's possible. It's also shed some weight and is now only 7 grams.

Audio

It records at 48kHz, but only at 24bit — 32bit would've been preferred.

With one simple press of a button, you engage the noise cancelling which has been pretty impressive in my tests so far and not overly aggressive. Put it this way, I'd be tempted to leave it on more often than not. It hasn't got that artefacty sound that I mentioned earlier — it's fairly subtle.

On my first recordings with the Lark M2S, I didn't apply any effects in post — I wanted to hear what it sounded like and 'looked' like natively. You can tell a fair bit about audio from the way the waveform looks — and the waveform from this mic was quite open and even. It would probably sound a tad better with some compression and de-essing, but that is not the idea of this mic — this is all about plug and play.

Adaptable

The beauty of this Lark wireless mic is the freedom it offers.

For someone like myself who works alone, it means I am no longer restricted to using the shotgun mic at my desk, and it also means that I can record audio straight to the SD card in my Canon — my camera has suddenly become a running gun setup.

There is a 300m (1000ft) range, which opens up even more opportunities and even then, your audio won't be compromised.

Final thoughts

Is it the match of my studio mics? No, but then again, it doesn't claim to be and it's a fraction of the cost.

But, this Lark mic is far more versatile and will open up new ways for me to work. I can record in either the Blackmagic or the Final Cut Camera app, with way better audio than before.

You need next to no audio knowledge to get great results out of this Lark M2S, and certainly, by the time most people listen to the results through AirPods or after YouTube compression, most won't think about the audio — and all the while, the mic itself is virtually invisible.

Sure, in a perfect world, the Audio Mix features on the iPhone 16 Pro Max would have been the answer. They got some way there, but as I mentioned, there will always be limitations, if only because of mic-proximity.

But with a wireless system such as this M2S one from Hollyland, you can record almost studio-quality audio anywhere on pretty much anything — iPhone, Android, Mac, PC or camera.

Coming from an audio background, I was sceptical, but having given them a fair test this past few days, I have to say — they've made a decent fist of it, and I've had to eat humble pie.

A USB-C cable would've been handy, and recording in 32-bit float should've been a given, but outside of that, I think I can see myself using these Lark M2S mics a fair bit.

A large part of creativity is being able to seize the moment — and because of its flexibility, this M2S lav setup from Hollyland means being creative just got easier.

Originally published at https://talkingtechandaudio.com on January 9, 2025.