Date: 12/13/25 7:22 am From: David Swinford via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Merlin mic
I am curious if the mic attachment to a phone improves the quality of your
spectrograms? I have a Google Pixel 8 pro and use Merlin and the Recorder
App to record, Audacity to edit. I'm not able to get spectrograms crisp
enough to get what I want, which is the ability to ID Red Crossbills by
their type of flight call. The spectrograms lack sufficient detail.
Some folks that do have success getting crisp spectrograms using basic gear
are using iphones. I wonder if the quality of the mic on a Pixel is less
than an iphone?
Thank you!
Dave Swinford
On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 7:07 PM Robert O'Brien via Tweeters <
<tweeters...> wrote:
> Thanks for that Mic info. I got Costco hearing aids a year or so ago and
> suddenly I was able to hear bids i had not heard in years
> BUT, it seemed impossible to determine the direction of the bird sound.
> AND Merlin with my Samsung S25+ still hears WAY more birds than I do. And
> I'm glad of it. I cannot hear Brown Creepers at all and it picks them up
> all the time.
> Always helpful to get more information about 'Hearing while Birding'.
> Thanks for posting
> Bob OBrien Portland
>
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 3:05 PM BRAD Liljequist via Tweeters <
> <tweeters...> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I got all excited about using a mic with my phone for Merlin - I bought
>> both Sennheiser MKE 200 and 600's. To be honest, they help, but not in a
>> transformative way. That, combined with my wife's worry that someone would
>> think I have a gun in my hand (!) has resulted in me not using them much.
>> It does seem like the phone mics (mine a Samsung) do pretty well. I do
>> still wonder about a parabolic mic but that's going into full geekdom, and
>> I have enough of that elsewhere in my life.
>>
>> Brad Liljequist
>> Seattle, WA, USA
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