The Hollyland Lark M1 has three main parts. The charger case, the receiver and two identical transmitter microphones.
Starting with the charger case, the design is simple and matches many device charger cases I’ve seen over the past few months. However, it is rare to see one provided by the manufacturer and not by a third party, which is a good idea. What’s odd is that while I like the design of the transmitter mics and receiver, which are all very compact and sleek, the charging case is a bit bland.
The case does what it does, and that’s it; there is no real product design that makes you feel like you are buying something desirable; it’s just a bit of functional hardware. To that end, it’s a charging case that holds all three components and gives them a boost charge while in your kit bag and between shots.
On the front of the case are four small lights that let you know how much charge is left, and inside there are three slots to accommodate the transmitters and receiver. The case design is functional rather than aesthetic.
Next comes the receiver, which is very well designed unlike the case. I’ll point out at this point that the transmitters and receivers are simple, so there isn’t the huge depth of features like channel, group selection and volume fine-tuning as you might expect with professional attire. What you get will get you up and running quickly.
The receiver is nice and simple, with a 3.5mm audio output that connects directly to your camera. There is no on-device audio monitoring, so headphones must be plugged directly into your camera.
Once inserted into the camera hot shoe, the top two LEDs will initially flash blue until they connect to one or both transmitters. Once that’s done and the lights come on, you’re good to go.
Along one side of the receiver is the USB Type-C charging port if you don’t have the charging case. Then you have two dual purpose buttons; one raises the volume and the other lowers the volume; the other use of these is that the former is used during manual pairing, and the latter is for switching between mono and stereo modes. I will come back to the use of these in the performance section.
On the opposite side are the 3.5mm jack and the power button, and the two contacts of the charging case are at the bottom. The design of the device is small and features a clip on the underside allowing the receiver to be easily clipped to a cable or slipped into the camera’s accessory shoe. Everything is very well thought out.
Take a look at the transmitter, and again the approach is simple, with the small clip allowing you to easily clip the mic onto a lapel. The unit’s design is small, but Hollywood has printed its logo on the unit in large white letters. It looks great, but inevitably a small length of electrical tape quickly covers the logo, making the device much more discreet!
On top is the mesh mic with another on the front to ensure good pick up from whoever it’s been cut to, in the box are wind jammers that easily clip on and off if needed. On the side is the power button, and below is a dual purpose pair and a noise canceling on/off button. On the base is a USB Type-C port for charging; again, if you don’t have the charging case, that’s it. A quick glance at the accessories list, and it doesn’t look like that USB port would accept a lavalier mic, let’s say if you wanted something a little more discreet on your collar than a Lark M1 emblazoned logo.
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