Microphone Types

There are many microphone types on the market today. One thing that should be known is that all of them convert the sound energy into electrical energy. What makes the difference among all these types is the way they do this. Some do it by using electronics, others by using electromagnetism or piezo-electric effects or some, even by changing in resistance of carbon granules.

Generally, mics are either capacitor or dynamic models which means that the former is electrostatic and the latter is electromagnetic. They both work by employing a diaphragm in order to capture the sound, but the difference between them lies in the principles that they use for converting the mechanical energy into an electrical signal.

Microphone models

First of the microphone types, is the dynamic mic. It is made of a diaphragm, which is usually made of plastic, that is attached to a tiny coil of wire that is projected in the vicinity of a permanent magnet. When the diaphragm vibrates because of a sound, the whole thing works as a small electricity generator and it produces an electric current. This microphone type is very effective when working with loud sound sources which do not have too much of high-frequency detail.

The capacitor monitors are older microphones and even though they have been improved along the years, the quality of their sound has very little changed. The nucleus of this microphone type consists of a pair of conducting plates. One of these two plates is fixed and the other one is in the form of a moving diaphragm. When this diaphragm vibrates the space between the two plates is changing and, thus, the capacitance varies. At this point, the only thing that is needed is to apply a fixed electrical charge that will produce an electrical signal that will represent the diaphragm vibration.

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