Hollyland Lark M2S Combo Kit review: for video makers who don’t need to show off their mic!

Without a wireless mic kit, your camera will pick up unwanted sounds such as background traffic or your voice echoing from nearby walls. This makes it harder for your audience to hear what you’re saying and poor audio quality will soon have your viewer scrolling to the next video offering on YouTube or Insta. Fortunately, poor sound is an easy (and relatively affordable) problem to solve thanks to the Hollyland Lark M2S (or our other best microphones for iPhone).

Hollyland is a company that produces a wide range of audio and video devices for the film industry, such as the Pyro 7 - a wireless video transmitter/receiver that enables a director to view live footage from a remote camera. However, Hollyland isn’t all about Hollywood (and its budget-busting costs). They also produce an affordable range of wireless microphones for the domestic video market - meeting the needs of corporate filmmakers and social media content creators. The Hollyland Lark series of wireless mic kits enable corporate and video bloggers to transmit their voices wirelessly to mobile devices or DSLRs, dramatically improving the production value of their audio recordings.

I’ve tested a few Hollyland Lark mic kits for Digital Camera World, such as the Lark M1 back in 2023. The M1’s transmitter was a blocky unit that looked like you had a Lego brick clipped to your lapel. This mic visibility wasn’t necessarily a problem for social media content makers who like to show off their kit, but some filmmakers might prefer a more subtle way of capturing their audio from a distance.

The Lark M2 kit released in January 2024 followed the evolution of other wireless mics such as the Godox Cube, with smaller and more discrete disc-shaped transmitters that attach to the subject via magnetic clamps (rather than a traditional lavalier mic’s spring clip). The Hollyland Lark M2S has evolved further to provide an even more subtle wireless transmitter solution, as we’ll explain in the Design section.

Hollyland Lark M2S: Specifications

Hollyland Lark M2S: Price

The Hollyland Lark M2S Combo Kit that we feature in this review can be picked up from Amazon for $149 / £139 / AU$269.

We’re reviewing the most expensive version - the Hollyland Lark M2S Combo, but if you don’t need a USB-C to Lighting cable adaptor or a receiver for a DSLR then you can pick up the cheapest version - with the smartphone-friendly USB-C receiver - for $119 / £110 / AU$269. There’s also a slightly more expensive version (costing an extra $10) - The Ultimate Combo - that has two mini receivers - one for USB-C and the other a plug-and-play Lightning connector for older iPhones, so do check the various purchase options on Amazon to make sure that your requirements are met.

Hollyland Lark M2S: Design & Handling

The Hollyland Lark M2S has simultaneously stepped forward and backward in the evolution of its design. Let me explain. 2025’s Lark M2S still retains the disc-shaped transmitters found in 2024’s Lark M2, but the magnets that attach the older model’s transmitters to a subject’s clothing are no longer required due to an innovative design change. The tiny omnidirectional microphone that was built into the older M2’s transmitter has now sprouted outwards on a short curved stalk. This stalk acts as a hook, enabling you to face the tiny pearl-sized microphone outwards to capture your voice while hiding the bulkier disc-shaped transmitter behind the subject’s shirt or jacket. Clever stuff!

The Lark M2S’s mic is now more discrete and much quicker and easier to attach. When attaching the older Lark M2’s transmitter mic to a subject you needed them to pop a thin magnet behind their clothing to keep the mic in place. This was a more intrusive operation than simply hooking the M2S’s transmitter onto a shirt. We’ve come a long way from the 1980’s when - as a young sound recordist - I had to feed a cabled lavalier clip mic up the inside of a subject’s shirt or jacket to hide the wire, before clipping the mic to their lapel. Now I can hook a Lark M2S onto a subject’s shirt in seconds and start recording. I also found it a bit fiddly to remove the old Lark M2’s magnet from the inside of a shirt without dropping it! So I don’t miss the lack of a magnetic component in the Lark M2S.

We tested the Lark M2S Wireless Microphone Combo Kit. This features two transmitter mics, plus a tiny receiver that plugs into a smartphone via a very short USB-C plug. So there are no dangling cables to get in the way if your smartphone is mounted on a gimbal! The Combo Kit also ships with a receiver designed to slide into the cold-shoe mount of a DSLR or mirrorless camera. A supplied 3.5mm TRS to TRS cable then connects the receiver to your camera’s audio input socket. You can adjust sound levels coming onto your camera by using a volume button on the DSLR-attached receiver. A separate USB-C to Lightning cable enables you to attach the camera receiver to older iPhone models. So in effect, you can use the Lark M2S Combo Kit with any device!

Hollyland Lark M2S: Performance

Before testing the Lark M2S Combo Kit on location I unboxed it and peeled off the protective transparent stickers that stop the connectors on the transmitters and receiver from being charged by the plastic carry case when it ships to you. I then plugged a USB-C cable into the carry case to equally charge the three units inside it. When the transmitters (TX) and receiver (RX) were fully charged I fired up the LarkSound app on my iPhone 16. This enabled me to adjust the default gain control of both mics (between low, medium, and high). I could also change the two mics from the default Mono recording setting to Stereo. This would enable me to capture audio from transmitter 1 (TX1) on one audio channel and transmitter 2 (TX2) on a separate channel, so I could tweak the levels of an interviewer and interviewee separately in the edit if necessary.

The LarkSound app also enabled me to update the firmware of both transmitters and the USB-C smartphone receiver. This update promised to improve the vocal performance of high frequencies for a brighter sound. After the update, I could also customize the orange noise cancellation button on the receiver so that it would Mute both transmitter mics with a double press.

I transported the Lark M2S and its accessories to my test shoot’s location in the kit’s supplied leather bag. The location was exposed and windy, so I dug out a circular fluffy windshield from the kit. This ‘dead cat’ style windshield has a little pouch hidden amongst the fur. After a bit of a fiddle, I was able to slide the pearl-sized mic into the pouch. The windshield made the discrete mic look far more noticeable when I hooked it onto my shirt, but there was no hint of wind rumble in my recording.

The spec for the Lark MS2 promises a maximum transmission range of 300 meters (1000 feet). At 80 meters (where I ran out of space to walk further) I could barely be seen on camera, so it’s very unlikely I’d need to record from the full 300 meters, especially when I’d be unable to see my tripod-mounted camera. Talking of cameras I plugged the tiny USB-C receiver into my iPhone 16. As with most wireless mic kits, the Lark M2S sounded loud and clear at 80 meters as long as I faced the camera. If I turned my back on the camera the transmitter lost line of sight with the receiver and the signal dropped out. Dropout started to occur at around 33 meters when I turned away from the camera. As there’s no onboard recording feature on the transmitter you will need to play back your recording to make sure that you’ve got audio clean and clear audio track before finishing the shoot. Make sure that you watch my test video to hear the Lark M2S’s quality for yourself.

After the distance test, I found a noisy fountain to test the kit’s noise reduction function. By tapping the orange button on my transmitter mic I was able to trigger noise reduction. The white noise of the fountain in the background completely vanished, leaving me sounding clean and clear. I’ve tested over 20 wireless mics to date and often the built-in noise reduction feature adds a bit of a flat-sounding warble to my voice, but the Lark M2S’s noirs reduction sounds great as you’ll hear from my test video.

Hollyland Lark M2S: Verdict

I liked the Lark M2S. I was impressed with the quality of the audio that it captured which is due to its high 24-bit depth and the 48 kHz sample rate. True, it is sometimes prone to signal drop out if you turn your back to the camera (from around 33 meters), but when presenting I tend to face the camera anyway, and when I do that the Lark M2S transmits my voice loud and clear from 80 meters (I ran out of space to go further in my test - see video in the Performance section). It may lack the onboard recording feature that other wireless mics possess (such as the Saramonic Blink500 ProX B2R), but if you play back your recording while still on location you can re-take your presentation if necessary). To be honest, I’ve never needed to use another transmitter’s onboard recording to patch holes caused by dropout in any professional job, so for me, it’s not an essential feature and it helps keep the price down.

I was very impressed with the transmitter’s built-in noise reduction feature as it lacked the usual flat/thin and warbly audio captured by some other mic’s noise reduction features (Godox WES2 I’m looking at you). I tend to focus on using smartphones to generate content these days, but the Lark M2S Combo kit’s extra cold-shoe mounted receiver will come in handy if I need to record sound from the Lark M2S’s transmitters to my Canon DSLR. And that receiver has a tactile volume control knob so I can fine-tune the audio levels being recorded on my Canon.

If you need to shoot a mix of smartphone and DSLR/mirrorless footage then the Lark M2S Combo kit is worth paying around $40 more for, or you can buy a cheaper smartphone-centric USB-C only version of the Lark MS2 if you only shoot content on your iPhone or Android device.

Alternatives

Boya Mini
If you’re on a budget then the Boya Mini provides an attractive alternative to the Lark MS2 as it’s less than half the price. As the name suggests the Boya Mini’s transmitters are small and discrete, and they also clip to clothing (rather than rely on the fiddly droppable magnets some kits provide). Read the full Boya Mini review...

Hollyland Lark M2
The predecessor to the Lark MS2 relies on a fiddly magnetic mic attachment and the disc-shaped transmitter is more noticeable than the MS2’s pearl-sized mic, but this effective (and cheaper) kit performed better than the Lark MS2 when it came to going the distance without signal drop out. Read the full Hollyland Lark M2 review...