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How to modify cheap USB electret microphone for higher volume

Fluffyboii

Active Member
Hi,
I moved to Germany and I did not had any portable microphone with me so I had to purchase one. I first went to the Media Markt and bought the cheapest decent looking USB microphone they had which was priced at 20 Euros and it was actually their own product (probably random thing they are drop shipping from China). Anyway when I pluged it in it had meaningless amount of RGB lighting but the volume levels were so low that even if I put it up to my mouth it was practically unusable. So I immediately refunded it on the next day.

Anyway I decided to buy a microphone from Aliexpress for 1.5 Euros. Well it actually works better than the one I got for 20 Euros. It is in fact usable for talking in Discord. But the volume level is still lower than what I would prefer. So I took it apart quickly to see what it has inside. There is not much going on as you may expect. Unfortunately the chip that does everything is missing any kind of writing on it, probably on purpose. Now I can definitely change the capsule here for something slightly bigger but I doubt that will increase the gain here. Does anyone have any idea how I can modify this thing for slightly higher volume. The resistor R3 (next to the C4) is connected to the capsule and the capsule gets 1.6V bias. Other than that I did measure the voltage on the pins of the IC but did not understand what is going on as expected. Perhaps if I pull out the oscillator I can at least tell where is the analog stuff happening here but wanted to ask here first. I know this is a waste of time and I can instead build something better from scratch but I like wasting time like this.
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Did you already adjust the input volume on your PC? Slightly different on a Mac but the same idea.. here's the PC instructions... if it sounds good enough, you're good to go. If it is distorted, you may need to adjust the gain resistors on the input.

==========

To adjust the volume of a USB microphone on a PC, you can do the following:
Open the Control Panel
Click Hardware and Sound
Click Sound
Select the microphone under the Recording tab
Click Properties
On the Levels tab, adjust the microphone and microphone boost levels
Click OK

You can also adjust the volume of a USB microphone on a PC by going to Start > Settings > System > Sound. Then, select the microphone under Choose your input device and select Device Properties.

To get the best sound from a USB microphone, you can try isolating the mic from mechanical interference and gain staging the levels correctly.
 
Did you already adjust the input volume on your PC? Slightly different on a Mac but the same idea.. here's the PC instructions... if it sounds good enough, you're good to go. If it is distorted, you may need to adjust the gain resistors on the input.

==========

To adjust the volume of a USB microphone on a PC, you can do the following:
Open the Control Panel
Click Hardware and Sound
Click Sound
Select the microphone under the Recording tab
Click Properties
On the Levels tab, adjust the microphone and microphone boost levels
Click OK

You can also adjust the volume of a USB microphone on a PC by going to Start > Settings > System > Sound. Then, select the microphone under Choose your input device and select Device Properties.

To get the best sound from a USB microphone, you can try isolating the mic from mechanical interference and gain staging the levels correctly.
Thanks but I know how to adjust microphone volume in Windows. It is already set to maximum.
 
The resistor labelled "R3" seems like the bias resistor for the microphone capsule, and it could be controlling the microphone's gain to some extent. Increasing its value might boost the output level slightly.
 

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