25 Facts About Condenser microphone

Several types of Condenser microphone are used today, which employ different methods to convert the air pressure variations of a sound wave to an electrical signal.

The Berliner Condenser microphone found commercial success through the use by Alexander Graham Bell for his telephone and Berliner became employed by Bell.

Also in 1923, the ribbon microphone was introduced, another electromagnetic type, believed to have been developed by Harry F Olson, who essentially reverse-engineered a ribbon speaker.

Condenser microphone, invented at Western Electric in 1916 by E C Wente, is called a capacitor microphone or electrostatic microphone—capacitors were historically called condensers.

In most cases, the electronics in the Condenser microphone itself contribute no voltage gain as the voltage differential is quite significant, up to several volts for high sound levels.

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An electret microphone is a type of condenser microphone invented by Gerhard Sessler and Jim West at Bell laboratories in 1962.

The externally applied charge used for a conventional condenser microphone is replaced by a permanent charge in an electret material.

Valve microphone is a condenser microphone that uses a vacuum tube amplifier.

The classic RCA Type 77-DX Condenser microphone has several externally adjustable positions of the internal baffle, allowing the selection of several response patterns ranging from "figure-eight" to "unidirectional".

Some new modern ribbon microphone designs incorporate a preamplifier and, therefore, do require phantom power, and circuits of modern passive ribbon microphones, i e, those without the aforementioned preamplifier, are specifically designed to resist damage to the ribbon and transformer by phantom power.

The high impedance of the crystal Condenser microphone made it very susceptible to handling noise, both from the Condenser microphone itself and from the connecting cable.

New type of laser Condenser microphone is a device that uses a laser beam and smoke or vapor to detect sound vibrations in free air.

Reciprocity applies, so the resulting Condenser microphone has the same impairments as a single-driver loudspeaker: limited low- and high-end frequency response, poorly-controlled directivity, and low sensitivity.

Inner elements of a Condenser microphone are the primary source of differences in directivity.

How the physical body of the Condenser microphone is oriented relative to the diagrams depends on the Condenser microphone design.

Some Condenser microphone designs combine several principles in creating the desired polar pattern.

An omnidirectional Condenser microphone's response is generally considered to be a perfect sphere in three dimensions.

The body of the Condenser microphone is not infinitely small and, as a consequence, it tends to get in its own way with respect to sounds arriving from the rear, causing a slight flattening of the polar response.

Therefore, the smallest diameter Condenser microphone gives the best omnidirectional characteristics at high frequencies.

Unidirectional Condenser microphone is primarily sensitive to sounds from only one direction.

Typical uses of this Condenser microphone, which has unusually focused front sensitivity and can pick up sounds from many meters away, include nature recording, outdoor sporting events, eavesdropping, law enforcement, and even espionage.

Noise-canceling Condenser microphone is a highly directional design intended for noisy environments.

Maximum SPL the Condenser microphone can accept is measured for particular values of total harmonic distortion, typically 0.

Dynamic range of a Condenser microphone is the difference in SPL between the noise floor and the maximum SPL.

All Condenser microphone calibration is ultimately traceable to primary standards at a national measurement institute such as NPL in the UK, PTB in Germany and NIST in the United States, which most commonly calibrate using the reciprocity primary standard.

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