Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

orvn

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 11, 2011
263
0
Toronto, Canada
After reassembling a 2017 21.5" retina iMac (the one where there is a single mic at the bottom of the display, as opposed to previous generations which had 2 mics near the iSight at the top), and being careful that the adhesive strips on the bottom don't block the mic, I noticed the microphone was extremely muffled.

The delicate mic cable was a little bent, so I decided to order a new one.

Unfortunately, the iFixit tutorial for the 21" iMac microphone is missing, and the teardown isn't that specific when it comes to the mic.

I did find this photo of it on their site.
2017-imac-mic-bottom.jpg


But I'm not sure of a few things:

  1. The orientation of the mic (is it supposed to fold and wrap around the lower support chin strap bracket?)
  2. Is the gold part supposed to touch the aluminum of the iMac chassis?
  3. How to adhere it to the aluminum?
  4. How does the sound even get through this thing if there's a piece of glass in front of it, and adhesive on either side of the glass? (I know to make sure that the adhesive strip doesn’t obstruct the mic, but I still don’t understand how the sound gets out clearly)
 
My opinion only...

It's not worth "opening it up again" just to mess with the built in mic.

You could buy a lower-priced USB mic, plug that in, and probably have better sound from it...
 
It's not worth "opening it up again" just to mess with the built in mic.
You could buy a lower-priced USB mic, plug that in, and probably have better sound from it...

Yeah, I thought about it, but I had an extra set of adhesive strips and wanted the machine working well after doing a bunch of upgrades, so I just decided to go ahead and do it. Especially because the mic is pretty easily accessible, unlike almost everything else lol.
 
1) I do not believe it folds around the lower support bracket - although I have only tried this on the 21.5" model.

2) Yep - the gold part is good to touch the case.

3) When I was trying it out, I used a VERY small amount of super glue around the edges - the part won't be moved again so doesn't require too much.

4) Magic.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.