#electret mic

A brilliant inventor and fighter for equal opportunity

Credit: Johns Hopkins University In the early 1960s James West and his colleague Gerhard Sessler invented the electret microphone while they were working together at Bell Labs. The condenser mics that were being used at the time cost hundreds of dollars; an electret mic that would produce the same flat response across a wide frequency range cost pennies to make. Needless to say, the electret mic…