Tag: Microphones

Definition of microphone

A microphone, mike, or simply mic, is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are transducers that detect sound waves and produce an electrical image of the sound; they create a voltage or a current proportional to the sound signal. Telephones and radio transmitters used them. Today, they have developed through some major changes in quality.

How do microphones work?

A microphone converts sound into a small electrical current. When you speak, sound waves created by your voice carry energy toward the microphone. Inside the microphone, sound waves hit a diaphragm that vibrates, moving a magnet near a coil. In some designs, the coil moves within a magnet. The magnet produces a magnetic field that cuts through the coil. As the coil moves back and forth through the magnetic field, an electric current flow through it. The electric current flows out from the microphone to an amplifier or sound recording device....

A ceramic microphone element works the same way. The Rochelle salt is not very strong and crumbles easily. If you drop a mic or let it freeze or it gets too hot the element breaks in half and is useless. Stronger materials with piezoelectric effects similar to or even stronger than then Rochelle salts have been discovered over the years.

The Rochelle salts absorb water or become permanently bent so that old ones have low output. Ceramic elements work exactly the same way as the Rochelle salt microphones, using the same internal parts, except that it uses a small slab of piezoelectric material made out of a ceramic compound. The ceramic elements sound much like the crystal elements....