Megan George 3/3/19 History of Microphones The history of the microphone starts with German inventor Johann Philipp Reis who, in 1861, built the Reis Telephone, a device which converted sound waves into electrical impulses- however it could only relay music, not articulate speech. The telephone was later famously improved by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 with the liquid transmitter, allowing vocal cords’ vibrations to be picked up, and speech to be recorded. However, this system had poor quality. The first microphone that projected voice well was the carbon microphone, which was created by David Edward Hughes around 1877. These microphones are the prototype of today’s mics, and they are what helped develop broadcasting and recording industries. Thomas Edison remastered the microphone into the carbon-button transmitter in 1886, a more practical and efficient substitute for Bell’s liquid transmitter. This is what was used in the first radio broadcast and was used in telephones up...