Tracing the microphone's path in history to its beginnings is not an easy task. Various people created different types of "microphones" at different times. Instead of giving a definitive answer, such as "The microphone was first created in..." we will go over the microphone's muddled creation. It's a bit like written language; it was created in multiple different locations and the only way to do it justice is to give credit to each, somewhat independent, genesis [7].
The microphone didn't just pop into existence out of a vacuum though. We saw in the History and in the Pre-Microphone Communication pages that humans are constantly pushing the boundaries on communicating information; the microphone was therefore just another addition to a long list of communication technologies. As with most technologies there was some reason for the microphone being introduced the time it was. In the microphone's case it came to be with a big help from knowledge gained beforehand. About 20 years prior to the first microphone there had been a large increase in research on speech and hearing, thus paving the way for the mechanics of the first microphones [8]. We must understand that the invention of the microphone isn't special because it was a new and revolutionary idea. We only see that if we limit our scope to the period during and right after the microphone was invented; a view Adam McKeown would most likely agree with [9]. Instead, it's special because after years of attempts someone finally figured out how to make it work as intended.
The microphone didn't just pop into existence out of a vacuum though. We saw in the History and in the Pre-Microphone Communication pages that humans are constantly pushing the boundaries on communicating information; the microphone was therefore just another addition to a long list of communication technologies. As with most technologies there was some reason for the microphone being introduced the time it was. In the microphone's case it came to be with a big help from knowledge gained beforehand. About 20 years prior to the first microphone there had been a large increase in research on speech and hearing, thus paving the way for the mechanics of the first microphones [8]. We must understand that the invention of the microphone isn't special because it was a new and revolutionary idea. We only see that if we limit our scope to the period during and right after the microphone was invented; a view Adam McKeown would most likely agree with [9]. Instead, it's special because after years of attempts someone finally figured out how to make it work as intended.
If we don't limit ourselves to microphones having to be electric then we can listen to one of the first human voices being recorded close to 1860 by a phonautograph in France [10]. The phonautograph was created by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville two decades before audio recording would start to gain attention [11]. During the middle of the 19th century, right around the time of the phonautograph, a scientist named Johann Reis was experimenting with audio recording also [12]. He created a device whose purpose was to transmit the human voice, but in practice it was never capable of doing so. Emile Berliner created a type of microphone in 1876 [13]. It was to be used as a telephone voice transmitter. His invention would then be sold to Bell Laboratories soon after. This is a bit controversial though because a man named Elisha Gray had simultaneously created a device very similar to Bell's, however, Bell was awarded the patent. A microphone that would have a better historical run was created by David Hughes in 1878 in Bell Laboratories. Hughes created the first carbon microphone. The carbon microphone was very big in broadcasting and eventually transitioned into the telephone industry where it stayed up until the electret microphone was created in the 1960's [14]. The electret microphone is cheap to make and performs well so it's no wonder it has found its way into a lot of gadgets today, one such being the hearing aid [15][16].