[Harp-L] Chromatic mic

Vern jevern@xxxxx
Mon May 2 04:39:58 EDT 2016


It is obvious that the Suzuki mic is an electret.  My guess is that it won’t sound any different from any other electret …including the Radio Shack 33-3013 or the AMT HR3. 

Although calling an electret a “condenser” mic  may be narrowly correct, it is also misleading.  What we are accustomed to calling a “condenser” mic has a large diaphragm that is charged to about 40V by “phantom" power.  They are usually expensive and most often used as studio mics.  They won’t tolerate rough handling as will an SM58 dynamic. 

An electret has a tiny diaphragm which is made of permanently charged material.  3-9V of phantom power are needed to energize the field-effect-transistor (FET) that is built in to lower the impedance into a useful range.  Electrets are very small, very low cost, robust, and are found in hand-held electronics, tie-clips, headsets, etc.   However, a good quality electret can have good, clean, flat performance.

Whenever a mic is peanut-sized and needs a pre-amp with a battery or is built-in, it is surely an electret.  Some equipment like the Sennheiser and AMT wireless transmitters and possibly your computer are set up for electret input and don’t require a separate pre-amp.

Vern

> On May 2, 2016, at 12:11 AM, Sheltraw <macaroni9999 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ……...Suzuki HMH-100 condenser…………..




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