Electret Condenser Mic Question

I have a headset electret condenser mic that has a low frequency response. Other than changing the element is there a means of getting a higher frequency response?

Reply to
Spin
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Are you saying that the frequency response is poor, as in it is unable to respond to high frequencies such as speech sibilants ? If so, that is very unusual, as in general, the frequency response of an electret mic is very good - certainly more than adequate for speech, and in most cases, good enough for pretty much anything short of professional recording. A quick look at the specifications of a few shows them to be good to at least 16kHz. Has the response always been poor ? Are you sure that the problem is not something much more fundamental, such as the small hole where sound gets into the mic, being stuffed up with fluff or other clag ? Or are you maybe feeding it into an input with entirely the wrong sensitivity / impedance ? Does the insert get it's supply from an internal battery, or should it be fed with a phantom supply from the equipment that it's plugged into ? If so, is the equipment providing such a supply ? Not quite the easy question that you were supposing perhaps ... ??

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

The electret element in question is 400 ohms imp & it was plugged into the input of a 600 ohm imp computer sound card. Recording my speech i noticed that it lacked "highs". I then replaced the above with a 2k ohm imp element & there was a vast improvement. The improvement consisted of a higher freq response & a dramatic increase in output (volume). What baffles me is, i thought that by matching the mic & sound card with similar impedance that i would get better efficiency? It appears that my computer sound card (600 ohm input ) works better with a 2k ohm mic than a 400 ohm mic! By the way the sound card provided the power for both mics. Any comments concerning the above would be appreciated.

Reply to
Spin

A nominal 600 ohm input won't be 600 ohms but somewhat higher. At one time, about 1.2k was the norm for a nominal 600 ohm mic. Which are usually about 300 ohms. ;-) A higher input impedance shouldn't effect frequency response but might make the noise figures worse. However, too low an input impedance will result in a bass loss. Which might sound like a treble gain.

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*Constipated People Don't Give A Crap*

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
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Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I agree with what Dave says, and would bow to his superior knowledge of studio audio anyway. Even given the levels of impedance mismatch that you think you have, and the somewhat worse ones that Dave says you likely *do* have, it still doesn't seem to me to be a sufficiently badly matched system to have a such an (apparently) large difference between the two mics. It might in the end just be "one of those things" that has no rhyme or reason to it. The sound card might simply just not like the original mic.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

Just to clear the air, can you confirm that the 2k mic was an electret and not a dynamic? From my experience (commercial communications, not studio) the results you are getting would be explained by the 2k being a dynamic and the electret NOT being powered. BTW, I haven't seen a PC sound card that does power a mic.

Reply to
rebel

a

results

Most PC sound cards mic jack are stereo type and provice supply through the center tap.

Reply to
Jeroni Paul

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