How do microphones work? I just do not get it.
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Microphones work like a speaker, but in reverse.
With a speaker, when you send a varying current through a coil that’s surrounded by a magnet, the coil will move back and forth. Attach a paper cone to the coil, and the cone will push and pull air as the coil moves. Send an audio signal through the coil which makes the coil go back and forth furiously fast, and the clobbering of air will produce sound.
With a microphone, it’s the outside sound that pushes and pulls on the cone (or usually a dome in the case of microphones), causing the coil to move back and forth against the magnet. That movement produces a tiny electrical current through the coil’s wire, and that current gets picked up by an electrical device where the signal’s either amplified to a speaker or transferred to a recording or transmission device.
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