Eli5: how does a microphone work?
In: Engineering
Sound vibrates through the air. Those vibrations eventually hit what’s called the diaphragm on the microphone- the diaphragm then vibrates just like the sound wave. The diaphragm is also connected to a little coil, that coil sees those vibrations and turns them into an electrical signal. When you add a lot of volume (aka gain) to that electrical signal, you have an audible sound.
Fun fact, microphones and speakers effectively function the same, but backwards. If you wire things correctly, you can yell into a speaker and use it like a microphone.
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