Where Can I Purchase Quality Electret Mic Elements?

Websters

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I'm interested in experimenting with electret mic elements. I'm looking for some 'quality' elements with a jfet for speech application only. For computer-VOIP. Any recommendations?
 
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I'm interested in experimenting with electret mic elements. I'm looking for some 'quality' elements with a jfet for speech application only. For computer-VOIP. Any recommendations?

Do you mean a capsule WITH built in impedance converter? I doubt there are many REALLY high quality ones since the market is for cheap utility mics or low/mid jobbies like the BM-800s and their ilk.

If you mean just the capsule sans amp and you want to roll you own, tricky! I would suspect they need very careful handling since a finger print would destroy the incredibly high Z path. The G Ohm resistors used in cap' mics come in glass vials to prevent contamination.

I guess you could try to blag Rhode or similar, say you want an M5 capsule? Bet they would just say "No, send in the mic and we'll fix it" !

Dave.
 
I can't think of anyone who would sell them--might be worth watching eBay for a used Sennheiser or Sony electret lavalier then dismantling it.
 
The Panasonic WM-61A capsule was originally designed for full size wired telephones and has been used by a lot of people for speaker measurement.

It's discontinued because nobody uses wired phones anymore and MEMS style microphones are all the rage in cell phones but they manufactured hundreds of millions of them over the years and there are plenty of them around at $6-$7 each (they used to be less than 50 cents each if you were buying thousands at a time.)

At 6mm it's pretty tiny so lets hope your soldering skills are on point. You'll need a 9v battery and a capacitor. Some people mount it in the shaft of an old bic pen.

Or if you want to do phantom power there's a moosapotamus project.

Works best on-axis.
 
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