Talk:Microphone

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Contents

[edit] microphone history

this article provides very little and partially wrong information about mic history. u r wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "The main basic designs still popular are of American, British or Russian origin" is not true. The condensor microphone was invented by Georg Neumann, Berlin, Germany, in 1926. The electret condensor microphone was invented in 1962 by the german Prof. Gerhard Sessler and the american James E. West who worked at that time for the Bell labs. See also http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/westsessler.html Inventor of the Week Archive --84.58.220.190 10:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


Then fix it. Doing nothing about wrong information doesn't help wikipedia or anyone else for that matter, neither does complaining about it. Fix the reference and then cite your fix next to it to improve wikipedia's quality. Tm1000 22:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] headset microphones

I use the device in this picture to talk to my computer. Does anyone have any thoughts if the most proper name for this device is a headset microphone? I would like to have some discussion to affirm anything before posting anything "wrong" Thank you. Nastajus 03:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

That's an electret condenser mike, which is already covered in the article. The fact that it's part of a headset is no big deal and not worth mentioning in the article. +ILike2BeAnonymous 06:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
ILike2BeAnonymous, or anyone, help me out here with a question. I used to work at RadioShack for several years recently. We used to sell headsets all the time, and I believe most of them had an electret condenser mike's under the foam. They all had a 3.5 mm (1/8 inch) connector jack, and an extremely small minority of them had battery power support, all ranging in a the low end price range. I guess what I'm looking for is a wide-ranging statement, like "electret are all covered in foam padding", so that's an image the mass public can identify with. And, they never taught us what the innards looked like.
Also, I'm thinking an image of a full-in-use version would be appropriate, like one of the products in this search. It would easily be recognized by masses of public at large. I think it would be awesome with the caption "standard headset containing an electret condenser mike under the foam". Or something like that. What do you think? I'm not this technical, I'm trying to dumb it down so everybody can instantly understand it's fully intended context. Nastajus 01:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the information on Electret mics is about as broad as it can be. I doubt that all headset mics are Electrets, so adding information to that effect might be misleading. Blue Dinosaur Jr 17:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mic vs. mike vs. microphone

The words 'mic' and 'mike' are used interchangeably through the article. While they are valid casual synonyms, I don't think they belong in the encyclopedic tone, so I'd recommend that all instances be changed to 'microphone'. Does this make sense, and does anyone disagree that 'mic' and 'mike' should be removed? ~Matthew

I think you're right Matt. Even though we call it a Mike(hate that sounds too much like my name) we never ever spell it as Mike but it's always spelt as MIC or Mic. So Mike doesn't belong here. Mic does belong here though. Upon looking at this article in more detail I think the word "Mike" is used too much. It's never spelt as Mike we can barely just get away with mic. --81.154.35.21 00:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I've changed all uses of "mike" to "mic" for now, for in-article consistency. Most literature uses "mic" as the short form, and if the short form is permitted, we should follow suit. mdf 14:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
And rethinking, I've just made the entire article use "microphone" as per Matthew, above. mdf 15:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Matthew, I couldn't agree more! --bobsmith319 14:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Referance for material I added http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/lyrics/Joe's_Garage.html#SyBorg

[edit] capsule?

What does capsule mean here? --211.171.132.50 12:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a synonym of "transducer". mdf 14:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Piezo mics

I removed some bloated information about guitars from the Piezo - Usage section. Blue Dinosaur Jr 16:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What does this mean?

In the explanation of how condenser mikes work, the article says:

As the capacitance changes, the charge across the capacitor does change very slightly, but at audible frequencies it is sensibly constant.

What does "sensibly constant" mean here? I really think this is a mistake, but don't know enough about the physics to correct it. Anyone? +ILike2BeAnonymous 07:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Shotgun microphones

It should also be mentioned that shotgun mics. are often used in law enforcement/intelligence surveilance operations.

Basesurge (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's covered in the "Application-specific microphone designs" section under parabolic mics. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Shotgun microphones offer no forward gain, so would be relatively useless surveillance devices. Not exactly sure about parabolic microphones either, since my experience with them doesn't leave me impressed with their ability to pull in normal human conversation either at long range or covertly. Now if the FBI or the FSB was monitoring birds... In any case, I note these sections of the article are unreferenced in its entirety. So I'd like to see some reliable sources to the effect law enforcement or intelligence people really use any of these devices. There are too many movies and books that, well, "extend the truth". mdf (talk) 20:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Agreed that shotgun mics aren't used much in surveillance. They are too big for most covert purposes. However, I disagree on your point that shotguns "offer no forward gain"... Because sounds to the rear and to the sides are attenuated by destructive interference from sound waves entering the shotgun's own ports then the preamp gain can be increased until the mic effectively has more forward gain. Steep phase response and impulse smear problems are what I'd blame for the shotgun's poor ability to pull speech in from a distance. Binksternet (talk) 20:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)