Why can microphones and speakers be used interchangeably?

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Even if the hardware is similar won’t they have a different software interface when connected to the device

In: Technology

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Not all microphones and speakers can be used interchangably, though there are certainly ports that can do both. However, a microphone is basically a reverse speaker, in the sense that, unlike a speaker, where you use electric current to move a magnet to create sound, you instead use soundwaves to create current by moving the magnet. As long as a software is aware that an incoming signal means it’s a microphone and a signal going out means it’s a speaker, i don’t see why the same algorithm used to encode one signal is capable of decoding the other, as long as any encoding that may happen along the way is compatible.

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