“Most computer microphones use the third segment to carry bias power for the microphone.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone_connector
I had thought it was to deliver sound to both sides (rather than left- or right-only) but here we are.
What is bias power?
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I have some headphones with a mic, but there is no bias voltage contact, only Left, Right, Mic(return?)and Ground. How does that work?
When you speak into a microphone, there is a membrane that picks up the vibration from the air, and either by moving a coil, compressing a piezoelectric crystal, or moving a MEMS system, it changes the voltage between ground and output.
Now, every time that membrane moves, it converts sound into electricity (same happens if you speak into a speaker, BTW), but… all real world materials have a resistance, capacitance, reactance and a resulting impedance, which need to be overcome for the signal to resemble the sound the membrane is picking up.
The difference is:
- Without bias power, the sound itself needs to power the system, meaning any sound below some threshold will get “used up” by the mic and not transmitted
- With bias power, the whole mic system is primed and ready to react to the slightest variation in sound, which gets quickly reflected in the voltage of the output wire
Basically, without power, the mic is “deaf” to part of the sound, which might be fine if you give it sound loud enough, but will always “sound” worse than a powered mic.
Soooo close; generally only condenser microphones require bias power, which is called phantom power in the professional audio world. Dynamic, ribbon and piezoelectric microphones do not need phantom power as the movent of the diaphragm directly creates the output voltage that is measured and applying phantom power does nothing, with the exception of ribbon mics which destroy themselves. But yes the 5v bias is the third connector to enable electret condensers microphones to work.
Phantom is 11-48V power over a balanced pair with the signal galvanically isolated, bias is direct 5-9V power over the 3rd cable. It’s generally not a good idea to mix them up and hook up a bias powered mic to a phantom power source. Also better not to hook up a passive mic with balanced output, to any kind of power source.
As for the voltage generated by the movement of the diaphragm, the amount and power varies by multiple orders of magnitude depending on technology and size of the mic, but you will always have some part just converted to heat and lost from the output. The best way to minimize that, is to provide power beforehand, to a preamp specific to the particular mic, that will keep the diaphragm in its optimum operating range, then boost the signal if needed.
Without bias power, the sound itself needs to power the system, meaning any sound below some threshold will get “used up” by the mic and not transmitted
This is false. I suspect this myth came about because this is how magnetic audio tapes work (tape bias).
Dynamic microphones do not benefit from bias. They can tolerate a small amount but too much will burn them out (depending on their resistance & the voltage applied) or increase distortion (depending on the mechanical construction & how much the diaphragm is moved by the DC). Some dynamic mic units are built with capacitors in them to intentionally block bias voltages, preventing them from burning out.
I have never seen a datasheet or research paper showing improved dynamic mic performance due to DC offset. If it helped then a manufacturer would be recommending it in the datasheets (so they could claim better distortion & sensitivity specs).
Mics with in-built amplifier circuits require bias voltage to function. Many small “electret” modules contain jfet amps, you have to check the datasheet because they look identical to non-amplified versions on the outside. This is very common in small computer & headset mics. Some might work without bias, but they will sound poor because the amplifier circuit is not designed to work this way.
Condenser mics need some form of bias voltage to function at all. Electrets provide this themselves through some magic materials science that’s similar to a battery that lasts for years/decades/centuries. The other types of condenser mic require you to apply an external bias voltage (aka “phantom power”).
Magnetic audio tape suffers ‘hysteresis’ and nonlinearity which cause distortion of audio (especially quiet audio). Applying a bias voltage works around this problem. DC biases work, but high frequency AC ones are typically better.
I suspect the source of this myth is a confusion between the magnetics of tapes and the magnetics of dynamic mics. I think I recall a year 8/9 science class where I was taught that audio could be amplified slightly by putting a battery in series with a microphone and speaker. I failed to find any sources to support that at the time, but the teacher was adamant that this used to be a legitimate method. Perhaps if the coils were not glued properly in the speaker & mic? It was supposed to be a solution before the days of tube amplifiers but I think the true information turned into nonsense somewhere along the chain.
but… all real world materials have a resistance, capacitance, reactance and a resulting impedance, which need to be overcome for the signal to resemble the sound the membrane is picking up.
Resistance, capacitance and inductance are linear. They will affect all signals the same way, they will not only affect small signals.
To affect the small signals differently to the large signals you need nonlinear elements, like diodes and transistors. EDIT: there are also nonlinear capacitors and resistors, but they’re from more exotic materials than what you find in standard headphone wires & mic designs.
Most likely the mic is simply powered by the voltage which also powers the headphones.
But there’s also mics which don’t need voltage to work at all (unlikely for headsets tho).
Thankyou for asking this question, I have no clue and you’re making me think that a recent frontpanel audio TRRS jack board I designed might be wrong :D
There are two possible options I can see:
- There is no bias voltage and your mic works fine without it (ie it’s a dynamic mic or an electret mic without a jfet amplifier)
- The bias voltage is provided through the mic pin (via a resistor and/or inductor). The mic then overlays AC onto this DC signal.
I cannot find any good references or info about mic bias and TRRS connectors :( Anyone else have any luck? Wikipedia says it’s a standard referred to as “CTIA” or “AHJ” but those appear to be company names, not standard names.
My current headset uses a TRRS, but also provides an extension cable that splits into two 3.5mm TRS just like yours. I might probe it out and find out what it’s doing (but that doesn’t mean it’s the right/universal solution).
Some types of mic capsules require a voltage to work
As well as everyone else’s answer here about bias power: it could also just be because a 3-pin TRS are cheaper/easier to buy and get assembly tooling for than 2-pin TRS. Economies of scale.
(For a good example of this: 3-axis accelerometers are cheaper than 1-axis and 2-axis ones. Everyone wants 3-axis for mobile phones, drones, human inputs and the like. You’re better off buying a 3-axis chip and ignoring the extra channels)
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I see two three pin 3.5mm stereo plugs (one of them color coded for the headphones and one for the mic), and zero 4-pin combo plugs?
No that is a stereo mic lead, hence the two rings.
I don’t think we can tell from just a picture of the plugs. These are definitely two 3.5mm stereo jacks, colored headphone and mic. Maybe have a look at the manual? Or type the model number into Google? Or use a multimeter and measure the resistance.
This was in a shop so yeah
What do you mean by stereo wire? It’s got 3 contacts on the 3.5mm jack, that’s enough to transfer analog stereo (GND, L, R).
Microphone is mono They’re wondering why there’s a third contact
It’s for bias to the mic. Condenser mics need it to apply bias to one of the leads of the mic so it can amplify the sound before sending it to the input of the card. Some mics don’t require that (self-biased) so in that case, the R pin (middle ring) goes to GND.
Ah, seems you’re right. I didn’t know that. But that seems to be an old way of doing it. I’ve only ever seen 2 contacts on a seperate microphone jack or the 4-contact combined ones in modern laptops.
The link doesn’t open, says connection refused 🤷.
Regardless, if it doesn’t require the bias pin, the mic is self-biased or biased through another source (use the same wire for the signal to get bias, this is easy, you just use a cap to decouple the signal from the bias).
So you have two low-quality mics that can distort your discord call twice as effective.
Innovation!
To my layman’s understanding (which is not good) it’s because of electronic resonance. In other words, how cables can give off/pick up radio waves.
In early radio, this was a problem with microphones picking up signal from radio transmissions, which obviously is unwanted when you’re trying to have people hear your voice, and not your voice mixed with competing radio signals.
From what I understand, when it comes to microphones, there is a “hot” a “ground” and a “cold”, and the cold is the same signal as the hot but inverted, and apparently this helps prevent picking up radio signals. It is called “balanced,” and I’m not sure why other than the inverted signals. So while it looks like a standard stereo cable with three connections, it’s apparently actually a standard microphone cable.
There’s a lot more radio/electric wizardry going on than that, but that’s my understanding of it, as a person who thinks Electricians are real life Wizards. This is based on some cursory internet research, so please anyone with more understanding correct me if I am wrong.
“Balanced” is used for signal transmission with twisted pair cables. The idea is that any interference will get picked up at the same time by both cables, but be of opposite polarity, so the receiver can just average them out to make like the interference never existed.
They don’t need to send the same signal inverted, just allow both cables to react in the same way to any interference (maintain the same impedance).
In microphones in particular, there are other two possible uses for a third cable:
- “phantom power”, which uses the balanced twisted pair to deliver power to a microphone’s built-in preamplifier, which can then send back the sound over the balanced twisted pair (kind of works like PoE)
- “bias power”, which is used to prime a transistor connected to an electret microphone in order to overcome its impedance (which can be seen as a kind of preamplifier like with phantom power, but doesn’t send the audio back over a balanced pair, and uses lower voltages)
Sorry Jarfil if I’m being nitpicky :|
They don’t need to send the same signal inverted, just allow both cables to react in the same way to any interference (maintain the same impedance).
These are both the same thing, just viewed from different angles. Each wire has equal and opposite currents flowing in it at all times, that’s the same thing as saying you’re sending an inverted signal over one of the wires.
“phantom power” […] “bias power”
Stage audio almost universally uses “phantom power” to mean 48V balanced, which is a nice standard meaning for the term, but I’d never claim someone is wrong for claiming they are doing balanced signals + “bias power”. It’d raise an eyebrow (have they made a mistake? it’s uncommon) but it’s still reasonable, I don’t think “bias power” specifically refers to only unbalanced configurations.
Albeit my mind might be poisoned by working with badly translated technical documents all of the time :D
These are both the same thing, just viewed from different angles
Not exactly. The balanced cable pair is just a loop closed by transformers at both ends, with the pair twisting intended to induce opposite currents which will cancel each other (convert to heat at whatever part of the loop). The signal you send, is the same over both cables at the same time, relative to ground, so it isn’t “a signal + the opposite”, the interferences are what becomes “interference + the opposite”.
“phantom power” […] “bias power”
Following with the loop from above, “phantom power” is 11-48V power applied by the receiver to the whole loop relative to ground, which gets used to power whatever circuitry is in the mic, and the signal gets sent back as a variation in that.
“Bias power” on the other hand, is a 3 wire connection: ground, a 5-9V positive, and the signal coming back through the third wire.
It’s always best to double-check whatever data sheets, but the general difference is that if you hook up a 5V “bias powered” mic to a 48V “phantom power” system, suddenly you get: ground, a wire at +48V, and another wire at +48V. The circuitry prepared for 5-9V, is probably not going to like that.
That’s why “bias powered” mics tend to use 3.5 TRS, some come with adapters to 6.35 TRS or XLR that have decoupling capacitors inside, and warn against using simple “dumb” 3.5 to 6.35 adapters or hooking them to a “phantom power” system (… although some systems can automatically disable phantom power when they detect a bias powered mic hooked up, but others don’t).
claim someone is wrong for claiming they are doing balanced signals + “bias power”
Not necessarily wrong… but it would raise an alarm 🚨 and I’d ask for clarification on what exactly are they doing, just in case they let some magic smoke out.
You’re describing balanced/differential signalling. This is used in stage or professional audio (typically over XLR connectors, but not always).
The 3.5mm TRS connectors that the OP has pictured are extremely unlikely to be using balanced signalling. If they did then they would not be compatible with the headphones jacks on computer motherboards or case fronts which follow the AC’97 or Intel HD Audio standards.
Is this better than a normal 4 contact jack without the cold?
“Cold” suggests you’re thinking of balanced signalling. You don’t have any balanced options with standard headphones and computer PC jacks, everything is unbalanced. Both the 4-connector (TRRS) and 2x3-connector (TRS) variants of your headphone connectors are unbalanced audio.
There might be a difference in crosstalk between the speaker and mic wires (ie signals going to your speakers leaking through the wire insulation and into the mic wires), but it should be inaudible if the cables and headset are designed correctly.
“Better” in terms of less radio interference? I suppose, probably.
I am not an audio engineer. It fascinates me, but most of it is beyond me.
Like how Apple used to be able to send video out of an iPod over a 1/8th connector, using the “sleeve” part as a 5th connector for video.
It has that wire to output audio on both speakers? That’s the green one btw. The pink is for mic input. USB could be for a few different things depending on the features that particularl set has.
Edit: Nvm, thought the question was for a headset, not a microphone. Unless the mic was part of a headset or something. Idk, other comments may have the answer.
The mic is part of the headset, I was wondering why there are 3 contacts on the mic wire unstead if 2 (signal,ground)
