Has anybody experienced the wired mic going bad or a way to test it besides calling a number and playing back voicemail?

 

When I first installed my NEX8000 and updated to CarPlay I was blown away with how well Siri responded but at some point (can't tell exactly what might have changed) my hit rate is almost zero to the point where she says she can't understand what I'm saying, unless I'm parked up with the engine off, which I could expect. But Siri used to be fine on the move...

 

Yes the voicemail I played back does sound like there's a lot of background noise but the mic placement hasn't changed so I'm wondering if the mic has degraded. Is there a "better" mic than the CD-VM1which would work ?

 

Anybody who has done some "tuning" to get this optimized ?