Laser microphone technology

One of my favorite blogs is engadget. Every day brings info about a “must have” item or something that I wish had been available when I was working as a sound person.

I got out of the sound business at about the time digital consoles and speaker management really began to overtake the sound reinforcement industry, so my background in “hands on” experience with this type of equipment was really limited. Still, I understood that regardless of how great the digital signal path was, sound reinforcement (or recording) still remained analog on both ends. On the input end, a diaphragm in a microphone had to vibrate, based on air movement, and a diaphragm (in this case a cone) had to vibrate, again exciting air movement, in order for someone to hear an amplified, or recorded and played back, sound.

Now it looks like there are finally some real options developing in the microphone end of the equation. The engadget posting is about a microphone that would use a laser to read data and it sounds pretty strange.

Here’s what they have to say: This device will reportedly stream damp air containing microscopic water particles through a tube, while a laser diode beams light through the vessel onto a sensor located on the opposite side. When sound waves enter the tube, the vibration of the droplets will cause the sensor to detect changes optically as the beam is disturbed, supposedly resulting in near-perfect vocal reproduction.

The inventors name is Dave Schwartz and he has a patent on the design.

Okay, lasers, streams of water, and millon dollar mics aren’t exactly ready for prime time, but at least someone is working on solving the front-end-of-the-amplified-chain problem.

What’s next? Digital gaffers tape?

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