Microphones - Mics

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Microphone Windshields ( Mic Windshield Small ) £2.99 View Details	Omni-directional Sub-miniature Microphone ( Submin Omni Insert ) £2.99 View Details	Omni-directional Ultra Miniature Microphone ( Ultramin Omni Insert ) £3.29 View Details
Microphone Capsules ( Mic Insert Dm-2 ) £3.79 View Details	Microphone Windshields ( Mic Windshield Large ) £3.99 View Details	Microphone Capsules ( Mic Insert Dm-9 ) £4.49 View Details
Microphone Capsules ( Mic Insert Dm-13 ) £4.99 View Details	Multimedia Boundary Microphone ( Pc Boundary Mic ) £4.99 View Details	Multimedia Desk Top Microphone ( Long Free Mic ) £4.99 View Details
Multimedia Microphone ( Monitor-fixing Mic ) £4.99 View Details	Multimedia Microphone ( Multimedia Mic ) £4.99 View Details	Notebook Microphone ( Notebook Microphone ) £6.99 View Details
Microphone Transformer Xlr To 1/4” Mono Plug ( Mic Transformer ) £7.99 View Details	Km40 Un-directional Coil Dynamic Microphone £9.79 View Details	3 Channel Microphone Mixer ( 3ch Mini Mic Mixer ) £9.99 View Details
Vocal Dynamic Microphone ( Voc Dynamic Mic Blac ) £9.99 View Details	Km2 Un-directional Coil Dynamic Microphone £10.49 View Details	Plantronics Audio 300 Pc Microphone ( Audio 300 Mic ) £12.99 View Details
Spm-08 Vocal Microphone By Gear4music £12.99 View Details	Dual Impedance Dynamic Microphone ( Dynamic Dual-z Mic ) £14.99 View Details	Dynamic Microphone ( Dynamic Mic ) £14.99 View Details
Usb2.0 Dynamic Vocal Microphone ( Usb Vocal Rec Mic ) £17.99 View Details	3 Microphone Pack ( Microphone 3 Pack ) £19.99 View Details	Drum/instrument Xlr Microphone ( Drum Microphone ) £19.99 View Details
Dual Impedance Condenser Microphone ( Dual Z Condenser Mic ) £19.99 View Details	Dynamic Microphone ( Unidirectional Mic ) £19.99 View Details	General-purpose Dynamic Microphone ( Dynamic Mic Xlr ) £19.99 View Details
Hq 3 Pack Xlr Microphones ( Hq 3pk Xlr Mics ) £19.99 View Details	Qtxsound: 460 Dynamic Microphone With Lead £19.99 View Details	Stereo Condenser Microphone ( Stereo Microphone ) £19.99 View Details

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Where did microphones come from?

The word microphone was first coined in the 1820's by British inventor and scientist Sir Charles Wheatstone.  He is well-known for his work in telegraphy (the science of sound travelling over long distances).  His microphone creation was quite different to what a microphone is now.  It consisted of two steel rods that could carry a very feeble sound over a distance to each ear.

In the 1850's and 60's, a physicist from Germany by the name of Johann Philipp Reis developed what he called a 'sound transmitter'.  He used a membrane that vibrated to sound and noise with a metal strip above, that bobbed up and down as the membrane vibrated. It bobbed up and down faster, or slower, and therefore producing more or less amplification. It didn't really work well enough to hear intelligible speech.

By 1878 David Edward Hughes had designed an entirely different sort of microphone.  It was made with carbon granules that responded to varying pressure proportionally with varying electrical resistance.  This technology was used in Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone.  Hughes is often credited with coming up with the term microphone though he wasn't even born when the word was used by Sir Charles Wheatstone to describe his steel rods in the 1820's.  However Hughes ' invention is much closer to our understanding of what a microphone is today.  Newspaper reports of the time said of Hughes' microphone "acts for the ear much in the same way that the microscope serves the eye, hence its name."

By the 1920's The Broadcasting era was in full swing and better quality carbon microphones were being made.  Condenser microphones were developed but they were never reliable enough (they didn't like moisture)  though the BBC did use one for a short time in 1926. Electromagnetic  Microphones were being developed, particularly by the music industry during the 1930's using batteries to create large magnetic fields.  As strong magnets were developed after the war, reliable electromagnet microphones came too.  If you buy a microphone or buy cheap microphones today, its probably been developed using much more recent technical advances but that was where they came from.