40 Facts About Condenser microphones

The carbon microphone is the direct prototype of today's Condenser microphones and was critical in the development of telephony, broadcasting and the recording industries.

Condenser microphones require a power source, provided either via microphone inputs on equipment as phantom power or from a small battery.

Condenser microphones are available with two diaphragms that can be electrically connected to provide a range of polar patterns, such as cardioid, omnidirectional, and figure-eight.

The RF biasing process results in a lower electrical impedance capsule, a useful by-product of which is that RF condenser microphones can be operated in damp weather conditions that could create problems in DC-biased microphones with contaminated insulating surfaces.

Unlike other capacitor Condenser microphones, they require no polarizing voltage, but often contain an integrated preamplifier that does require power .

Related searches

Monophonic Condenser microphones designed for personal computers, sometimes called multimedia Condenser microphones, use a 3.

Ribbon Condenser microphones are similar to moving coil Condenser microphones in the sense that both produce sound by means of magnetic induction.

Basic ribbon Condenser microphones detect sound in a bi-directional pattern because the ribbon is open on both sides.

In common with other classes of dynamic microphone, ribbon Condenser microphones don't require phantom power; in fact, this voltage can damage some older ribbon Condenser microphones.

Carbon Condenser microphones were once commonly used in telephones; they have extremely low-quality sound reproduction and a very limited frequency response range but are very robust devices.

Carbon Condenser microphones found use as early telephone repeaters, making long-distance phone calls possible in the era before vacuum tubes.

Crystal Condenser microphones were once commonly supplied with vacuum tube equipment, such as domestic tape recorders.

Piezoelectric transducers are often used as contact Condenser microphones to amplify sound from acoustic musical instruments, to sense drum hits, for triggering electronic samples, and to record sound in challenging environments, such as underwater under high pressure.

Fiber-optic Condenser microphones possess high dynamic and frequency range, similar to the best high fidelity conventional Condenser microphones.

Fiber-optic Condenser microphones do not react to or influence any electrical, magnetic, electrostatic or radioactive fields .

The fiber-optic microphone design is therefore ideal for use in areas where conventional Condenser microphones are ineffective or dangerous, such as inside industrial turbines or in magnetic resonance imaging equipment environments.

Fiber-optic Condenser microphones are robust, resistant to environmental changes in heat and moisture, and can be produced for any directionality or impedance matching.

Fiber-optic Condenser microphones are used in very specific application areas such as for infrasound monitoring and noise-canceling.

Laser Condenser microphones are often portrayed in movies as spy gadgets because they can be used to pick up sound at a distance from the microphone equipment.

Digital MEMS Condenser microphones have built-in analog-to-digital converter circuits on the same CMOS chip making the chip a digital microphone and so more readily integrated with modern digital products.

Major manufacturers producing MEMS silicon Condenser microphones are Wolfson Microelectronics now Cirrus Logic, InvenSense, Akustica, Infineon, Knowles Electronics, Memstech, NXP Semiconductors, Sonion MEMS, Vesper, AAC Acoustic Technologies, and Omron.

Pressure-sensitive Condenser microphones respond much less to wind noise and plosives than directional Condenser microphones.

The cardioid family of Condenser microphones are commonly used as vocal or speech Condenser microphones since they are good at rejecting sounds from other directions.

Since these directional transducer Condenser microphones achieve their patterns by sensing pressure gradient, putting them very close to the sound source results in a bass boost due to the increased gradient.

In more mathematical terms, while omnidirectional Condenser microphones are scalar transducers responding to pressure from any direction, bi-directional Condenser microphones are vector transducers responding to the gradient along an axis normal to the plane of the diaphragm.

Related searches

Shotgun Condenser microphones are the most highly directional of simple first-order unidirectional types.

Contact Condenser microphones have been used to pick up the sound of a snail's heartbeat and the footsteps of ants.

Parabolic Condenser microphones are not typically used for standard recording applications, because they tend to have a poor low-frequency response as a side effect of their design.

Some such Condenser microphones have an adjustable angle of coverage between the two channels.

Many noise-canceling Condenser microphones combine signals received from two diaphragms that are in opposite electrical polarity or are processed electronically.

Various standard techniques are used with Condenser microphones used in sound reinforcement at live performances, or for recording in a studio or on a motion picture set.

Certain ribbon and dynamic Condenser microphones however are exceptions, due to the designers' assumption of a certain load impedance being part of the internal electro-acoustical damping circuit of the microphone.

Different Condenser microphones can have vastly different impedances and this depends on the design.

Low-impedance Condenser microphones are generally preferred over high impedance for the following reason: using a high-impedance microphone with a long cable results in high-frequency signal loss due to cable capacitance, which forms a low-pass filter with the microphone output impedance.

Studio-quality Condenser microphones that operate in accordance with the AES42 standard are now available from a number of microphone manufacturers.

Some Condenser microphones are intended for testing speakers, measuring noise levels and otherwise quantifying an acoustic experience.

The quality of measurement Condenser microphones is often referred to using the designations "Class 1, " "Type 2, " etc.

Measurement Condenser microphones are generally scalar sensors of pressure; they exhibit an omnidirectional response, limited only by the scattering profile of their physical dimensions.

Measurement Condenser microphones calibrated using this method can then be used to calibrate other Condenser microphones using comparison calibration techniques.

Typically, an array is made up of omnidirectional Condenser microphones distributed about the perimeter of a space, linked to a computer that records and interprets the results into a coherent form.