Talk:Carbon microphone

I'm giving User:ILike2BeAnonymous a pat on the back for harmonizing the Button microphone article with the Microphone article.

Gerry Ashton 21:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Move requested to "Carbon microphone"
I've put in a move request for this page to be renamed "Carbon microphone", since this is by far the more common name for this device. "Button microphone" would then become a redirect to this article. (I would have done it myself, but couldn't because the redirect Carbon microphone&mdash

Contribution of David Hughes
There should be a discussion here of the contribution of David Hughes. A year after Edison obtained a patent for the telephone transmitter using a carbon button, Hughes wrote up his experiments with a telephone transmitter using conductive materials, principally carbon, in loose contact, but also including pieces of metal chain or common nails, in loose contact, and sent it to a British scientific society. He called his device the "microphone." Scientific American published a reprint of his writing, and said it appeared to be just a repeat of Edison's invention. Clearly everything Hughes "invented" was fully preceded by the work of Reis, Berliner, and Edison. The closest antecedent of Hughes' work was the Edison phone transmitter. It is very hard to believe that a Professor in the U.S. could be inventing telephone equipment and be familiar with Bell's work but not Edison's a year after the Edison patent and transmitter were widely publicized. But he did push the state of the art somewhat, particularly by having several pieces of carbon in series between carbon electrodes. Hughes noted that it made very faint sounds audible through a Bell phone receiver. He sought no patent. His device was not commercially usable, since its crude construction meant that any vibration, such as someone walking around, caused crashing noises to be heard at the far end. The British made carbon telephone transmitters and said they were based on the Hughes device rather than the Edison device, to avoid patent rights and royalties. Some websites now say that todays "microphone" is based on Hughes invention, where in fact he deserves mostly credit for re-introducubg the term, but not for inventing the underlying technology. Today's microphone is a development of technology besides the devices invented by Hughes.Edison 12:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hughes' contribution may be worth mentioning, but one or more sources should be cited if this material is to be added. Since his device was not commercially usable, I'd keep the section about Hughes short.--Gerry Ashton 21:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

White Solid Back Transmitter
The article was edited to call it a "Solid Back Microphone" but how was it referred to in the patent cited? Books call it a "transmitter?" Absent evidence to the contrary, I will change it back to "transmitter." Edison 04:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Patent 485,311 consistently refers to the microphone as a "transmitter" but using "transmitter" on a carbon microphone page may confuse people who may think that a distinction is being made between microphones and transmitters and may think that transmitter is being used in the modern sense of an RF transmitter, which of course it is not. I changed transmitter to microphone because this page is about carbon microphones. Greensburger 06:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

In early telephone parlance "microphone" is associated with the contribution of David Hughes and work resulting therefrom. The term was associated with an extremely sensitive pickup device which could detect a fly walking on the table where it sat, but which in its original form was prone to crackling and blasting noises and "too delicate for ordinary use.". I have the book "American Telephone Practice," 1899, and it uses the term "transmitter" : Bell's dynamo transmitter, Gray's variable resistance transmitter, Berliner's loose contact transmitter, Edison's carbon transmitter, Hunning's granular carbon transmitter. The word "microphone" refers (p15)to the special device built by David E. Hughes in 1878, consisting of 3 iron nails in loose contact or a piece of carbon in loose contact with two others. Skipping forward to 1933,"Radio Physics Course" by Ghirardi (revised 1942). P 344 says "The principle of the carbon microphone used in radio is exactly the same as that of the common telephone transmitter used in millions of homes." Skipping to modern times, there is "The telephone and its several inventors" by Lewis Coe, McFarland & Co 1995, which calls it a "transmitter:" the "liquid contact transmitter," the"electromagnetic transmitter" the "Berliner transmitter," and "Blake's transmitter." In a couple of places he does refer to Berliner's device as a "microphone," perhaps for elegant variation. On p36 he says "Hughes called his device a 'microphone,' a term coined by Wheatstone in 1827 to describe an acoustic listening instrument. The term is still used today in reference to any instrument designed to pick up sound. Telephones all use one, only in telephone practice it has always been called a "transmitter." Hughes apparently wanted to kmake the point he had done more than replicate the carbon transmitter patented by Edison, so he used another term for his device and claimed it worked on a new principle, a claim which was discredited. On p 37 he says "The final development of the Edison transmitter was credited to A.C. White, a Bell engineer, who, in 1890 invented what came to be known as the White 'solid back' transmitter. I don't think there will be much confusion that the phone mouthpiece was a radio transmitter. Microphone should be used for the Hughes device and for a sound pickup used in radio, recording, or public adress. "Transmitter" should be used for the sound pickup in a telephone. Sound fair? Edison 16:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you're falling into one of the classic traps of the historian here: while "transmitter" was used when these devices were extant, for good reasons, those reasons now no longer exist, and it's merely confusing to modern readers to use this term. You might, however, point out that this term was used then and explain why; to use it in the article as an identifier, though, would be needlessly confusing. +ILike2BeAnonymous 17:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I added "microphones (then called transmitters)" to the short History paragraph. Transmitter is also mentioned in the top paragraph. These anachronisms happen frequently.  Must we say New York City (then called New Amsterdam) when referrig to the time when Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Canarse (now called Mohawks) Native Americans (then known as Indians)? Greensburger 17:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Please note the 1995 reference book on phone history which still calls it a "transmitter," so the New Amsterdam" example is not convincing. I still often find phones with carbon transmitters. If you said "Look at the microphone" I would look for a handheld or standmounted mic for recording, radio or PA work. Older phones with the round carbon transmitter in the mouthpiece seem to outlast the newer ones for whatever reason. Edison 18:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Carbon Amplifier
I am not certain, but I have a suspicion that the example cited as a carbon amplifier still in production: "However, carbon amplifiers are still being produced and sold.[5]" ...may actually be a device to match some other form of mic, e.g. electret, to a "carbon level" system rather than an example of amplification by use of a carbon microphone (and the link seems to be broken now too). Can anyone please verify that this is what it is claimed to be? Solid state amplifiers to match modern headsets etc. to legacy telephone systems are extremely common. Onlyonefin 13:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I doubt that the mentioned 'Tuffset Carbon III' has anything to do with a carbonamplifier. It's carbon-black. - Bemoeial (talk) 13:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 one external links on Carbon microphone. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060610035645/http://invent.org:80/hall_of_fame/13.html to http://www.invent.org/Hall_Of_Fame/13.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100318043500/http://www.ieeeghn.org:80/wiki/index.php/Carbon_Transmitter to http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Carbon_Transmitter
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140115093245/http://hearing.siemens.com:80/Resources/PressDatabase/_Global/media-database/business/PR_pic_Hist_BTE.html to http://hearing.siemens.com/Resources/PressDatabase/_Global/media-database/business/PR_pic_Hist_BTE.html
 * Added tag to http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/biography/Edison/chap36.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:30, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Carbon microphone. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131231000041/http://www.angloconcertina.org/files/HughesforWebsite.pdf to http://www.angloconcertina.org/files/HughesforWebsite.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 06:07, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

History of the term "microphone"
The article claims


 * Hughes also coined the word microphone.

Is there a source for that claim? I ask, because etymonline states, that the term was much older, from the 1680's, denotating an "ear trumpet for the hard-of-hearing," Is the term a reinvention of Hughes not knowing the older word, or does Hughes refer to the older word? Or is the claim from the article here at wikipedia wrong, or the statement of etymonline? Any clarification is very much appreciated!

Jonathan Scholbach (talk) 15:20, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It looks like the source at the end of the paragraph might address it; I suggest digging into that source. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:52, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Actually I read this source and it claims that Hughes coined the term. But firstly it is not a very reliable source and secondly it does not clarify the relation of the term of Hughes and the pre-existing term "microphone". Jonathan Scholbach (talk) 16:20, 4 April 2017 (UTC)