iPhone sounds muffled to people I talk to

My 5s just started to develop this issue and thanks to this thread i was led to a path of recovery BUT simply disabling the noise cancellation didn't do the trick. Covering the microMicrophone located by the rear camera lens with my finger was still needed to solved the problem. To make this a more permanent solution i took three small slivers of black gaffer's tape and layered them on top of the mic. I wanted to use a non reflective black tape as not to create lens flare while taking a picture when the "flash" is on.