If the FET would've been first?

[NR5P]

Would crystal mics still be old news? I don't know what was invented first, but the bjt was widely used first. I suppose this led to low impedance mic popularity. Would low impedance dominate by now still? Would be nice to see more advancement of crystal mics, or maybe the d104 was good enough, sure seems to be. Maybe cool to see different cuts for bass drum etc. I guess the big downside to crystal mic elements is they are delicate to being dropped, moisture and maybe sound level?

I like the d104, into a very high impedance. Seems so perfect. Vibrating a crystal and making great audio.

[KA0HCP]

Astatic introduced the ubiquitous D-104 microphone in 1933.   It used Rochelle Salt (Potassium-Sodium Tartrate crystal), later available with ceramic elements.  I'm sure crystal mics predate this probably into the 1920's.

I have three Astatic mics, two D-104's one 60's vintage, 80's, and a musical mic with gold metallic flake of 60's vintage and they all have the same ceramic element.

I don't see any advantage to using Rochelle salt crystal elements for drum pickups.

[W2VW]

Dunno about FETs but like you say the D-104 is as close to perfect for voice as one can get if it is working OK and playing into a very high impedance.

Still some hammy forums advise people to gut theirs and put in a fascist element. Worse yet a condenser electret which needs an educated speech amp.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

If you use the SEARCH function on this board, Search: Rochelle salt you'll find some interesting discussions over the years.
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?action=search

[K6JEK]

The FET was patented first, back in (get a load of this) 1926.

http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1926-field.html

[W1FVB]

The FET was patented first, back in (get a load of this) 1926.

http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1926-field.html

I knew us FET AM operators are old buzzards. rrR 

[WBear2GCR]

I thought I had read that the FET came first.

But high-Z and low Z mics have little to do with either the bjt or the fet. Almost all front ends started as tubes, grids and those are high Z. Low Z mics often used transformers for impedance matching. Ribbon mics came pretty early, and standard dynamic mics came early as well. Of course the carbon mic apparently came with the early telephone so I expect proceeded the others.

Also the input impedance for both fets and bjts is usually pretty darn high-Z. It's the output Z of bjts that was always rather low compared to tubes, and compared to many jfets & mosfets. Although Mosfets have pretty darn low output Z.

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