Hollyland Lark A1 review: Improve your audio production values

Modern cameras and smartphones capture high-definition footage that can make consumer video look as good as pro footage! However, if you rely on using your camera/smartphone’s built-in microphones, then the audio quality of your footage won’t match the production values of your video clips. Sound quality drops off the further you stand away from your device’s built-in mic, and your voice will soon get drowned out by background ambient noises such as traffic. You can improve poor audio tracks with some post-production tweaking in apps such as Final Cut Pro, but this takes time, and the results won’t sound as good as they would if you’d used a third-party wireless mic kit such as the Lark A1 Combo.

By clipping a wireless transmitter mic to your clothing, you can make the mic stay close to your mouth at all times, even when you’re talking over 100 metres away from the receiver plugged into your camera. This wireless mic set-up ensures that the sound quality is clean and clear at all times, enabling you to make more effective contact with the viewers of your video. You may have resisted the urge to buy a wireless mic due to price, but thanks to a flood of competing products, Hollyland has released the Lark A1 Combo kit at a very competitive price, and to my surprise, it performed as well (and in some cases better) than more expensive wireless kits.

Hollyland Lark A1: Specifications

Hollyland Lark A1: Price

The Lark A1 starts at $34.90 / £35.86 for the two receivers and a transmitter if you are willing to forego the charging case. However, I reviewed the Lark A1 Combo kit, which contains two receivers – a USB-C version for smartphones and modern iPhones, plus a Lightning connectable receiver for older iPhones – which costs just $69.90 / £70.86.

The older Lark M2S costs nearly twice the price of the newer Lark A1 Combo Kit, but amazingly, the Lark A1 can match its more expensive sibling in terms of specifications and performance.

Both mic kits capture audio with a bit rate of 24-bit and a sampling rate of 48 kHz, leading to high-quality audio tracks. With a 200m transmission range, the Lark A1 can’t match the Lark M2S’s 300-meter range, but even at 200 meters, you’ll barely be able to see the subject, so this difference in performance is negligible. If you’ve been holding off buying a wireless mic, then well done, because the Hollyland Lark A1 Combo Kit offers amazing performance at an affordable price.

Hollyland Lark A1: Design & Handling

When it comes to the physical look of their wireless mic kits, Hollyland tends to experiment with different designs. 2024’s Lark M2 featured magnetically attachable disc-shaped transmitters, whereas 2025’s Lark M2S had a more discrete bulb-shaped transmitter that you could hook over your clothing.

I liked the M2S because you didn’t need to rely on using magnets to keep the transmitter attached to your shirt. The design of the newer Lark A1 is more conventional, with a capsule-shaped transmitter mic that attaches to a magnet placed inside your shirt.

I’m not a huge fan of the magnetic solution to attaching a mic. When removing the mic at the end of a shoot, the magnet can drop down inside your shirt. If you lose a mic’s magnet, then you can’t use it again, as the kit only ships with two magnets for the two mics. Other kits, such as the Sennheiser Profile, offer a magnetic or spring-clip solution, which provides a belt and braces approach to keeping your mic attached.

However, by removing the spring clip and relying solely on magnetic attachment, Hollyland has created a smaller and lighter transmitter mic, which weighs in at just under 9g (compared to the chunkier 30g transmitter of the Sennheiser Profile transmitter, which can cause your shirt to sag under its weight).

Despite being a tiny plastic capsule, the Lark A1’s transmitter has a few tricks up its sleeve. It features a display light that shines a steady blue when it is transmitting to the small plastic receiver plugged into your smartphone. A similar light shines steadily on the receiver, so you know that a connection has been made.

The transmitter’s light is on a discrete rubber button. In fact, this button is so discreet that I didn’t know it existed when I filmed my test video of the Lark A1 in action.

Press once on the button, and you trigger the transmitter’s AI-powered noise cancellation feature (resulting in a green light on the transmitter and receiver). A triple press enables you to remotely trigger your smartphone to start/stop recording video.

This feature is especially handy for the solo operator as it enables them to control their smartphone from a distance! Remote video control is not a feature I can remember encountering on other wireless mic kits (and I’ve tested and reviewed 30 kits to date since the Joby Wavo Air back in 2022!).

As with most other wireless mic kits, the two transmitters and the receivers are stored in a plastic carry case. By plugging a USB-C cable into the case, you can charge both mics at the same time, so that they will both perform for the entire shoot. The case and the supplied windshields (which slide onto the transmitters nicely and easily) can be transported in a drawstring canvas Hollyland-branded bag.

The bag and its contents will fit easily into your pocket, so the kit can always be available if you suddenly need to record a ‘talking to camera’ piece from a distance.

Hollyland Lark A1: Performance

To test the Hollyland Lark A1, I took it with me to record the sound of my voice while I tested and reviewed a studio LED. I film all of my Digital Camera World video reviews on an iPhone, so I plugged the Lark A1’s plastic USB-C receiver into my device. I attached the tiny transmitter to my shirt via its supplied magnet. The little LED status light on the transmitter and receiver shone a solid blue, indicating that they were connected to each other.

There are two mics in the Lark A1 Combo kit, and if you are doing an interview, then both LED lights on the receiver will shine blue to indicate that a signal is being received from both mics. To help you identify which mic is which, you can use the Lark Sound app to assign different colours to them. One mic’s light will shine pink, while the other shines yellow. The receiver also displays a pink and yellow light, so you can more easily spot problems if one of the mics loses contact with the receiver. This is a useful design touch that I’ve not encountered on other mic kits.

I also used the Lark A1 kit to record my voice for the test video in this review’s Performance section. As you’ll hear, the 24-bit 48kHz recording sounds clean and clear. An intelligent auto limiter helps reduce the presence of clipping from sudden loud sound levels.

As with all mics, I performed a distance test to see how far the mic could transmit without suffering from signal drop-out. I popped the camera on a tripod at the top of a long flight of stairs and chatted as I walked down to the bottom of the staircase.

Normally, when I turn away from the camera and my body blocks the line of sight between the transmitter and receiver, I experience signal drop-out quite quickly. I was therefore astonished that the Lark A1’s tiny transmitter was able to broadcast a clean and clear signal from much further than I expected, only dropping out when I reached the bottom of the staircase (at around 77 steps).

However, when I turned to face the camera, the signal returned to a clear high-fidelity level as the line of sight was re-acquired. This impressive performance must be down to the 2.4 GHz Adaptive Frequency Hopping feature that helps keep the mic and receiver connected when line of sight is lost.

Unlike the more expensive Sennheiser Profile Wireless kit, the Hollyland Lark A1’s transmitter does have a built-in AI-powered noise cancellation feature.

During my test shoot, I stood next to a loud air-conditioning unit, which was making enough noise to spoil my take. However, by tapping the button on the receiver (or tapping the discrete rubber button on the transmitter), I was able to activate AI-powered noise cancellation.

As you’ll hear from the test video, this did a good job of removing the nose of the air-conditioning unit without distorting my voice too much. The Lark A1 has three levels of AI noise reduction, which you can set using the LarkSound app, so you can experiment with getting a balance between removing unwanted background audio while keeping your voice sounding natural and unprocessed.

I used the highest level of noise cancellation in my test. You can also use the LarkSound app to adjust properties such as Reverb presets (Small, Medium, or Large) and EQ presets of Balance, Low, and Bright.

Hollyland Lark A1: Verdict

The Hollyland Lark A1 is one of the cheapest wireless mic kits that I’ve tested, but thanks to its 24-bit/48 kHz audio recording and 2.4 GHz frequency hopping abilities, sound captured on the Lark A1 compares surprisingly well with audio from a much more expensive mic like the Sennheiser Profile Wireless (though the latter does sound slightly sharper than the budget Lark A1). If you’ve yet to bite the wireless mic bullet, then the Lark A1 will certainly improve your audio production values without breaking the bank!

I’m a little concerned that each mic in the Lark A1 kit could be rendered unusable if you lose its solitary magnet, so that keeps the Lark A1 from a full 5-star review, but innovative touches like remote triggering of your smartphone’s Camera app via the mic’s physical button help keep the rating high.

In conclusion, I can certainly recommend the Hollyland Lark A1 to consumer video makers who want to take the quality of their YouTube videos to the next level. And given the kit’s compact size, you can carry it wherever you go in a pocket, so it’s always close to hand if you need to make an impromptu recording.

Alternatives

The Sennheiser Profile Wireless has the additional safety feature of 32-bit float onboard recording, which is triggered automatically when a signal dropout occurs. You can then plug any holes in your recording using the .wav file captured directly onto the mic.

Read our full Sennheiser Profile Wireless review

The older Hollyland Lark M2S has a similar spec to the Hollyland Lark A1, with 24-bit depth and a 48 kHz sample rate. However, thanks to a clever hook design, the Lark M2S’s transmitters don’t rely on magnetic attachment, so there’s no worry about losing magnets, which could render the cheaper Lark A1 useless.

Read our full Hollyland Lark M2S review