So I duplicated the following circuit on the breadboard:

It works great. But my problem is that the omni-directional electret microphone that I'm using cannot pick up my voice from 5 inches away. I have the output of this circuit connected to a PC speaker with built-in volume control (i.e. has an amplifier built-in). I even turned up the speaker volume all the way up.


How come I can't speak 5 inches away from the microphone and hear my voice?

 

What power supply scheme are you using? The circuit you have posted is an instrumentation amplifier with the final amplifier stage's positive input referenced to ground. That would normally be the case if it is used with a dual power supply. For example, +5V and -5V would be one possible choice.

Is it possible that you are trying to power the circuit with a single supply?

hgmjr

 

Hi,

Some electret mikes have three leads - the + voltage and audio are separate.

 

What power supply scheme are you using? The circuit you have posted is an instrumentation amplifier with the final amplifier stage's positive input referenced to ground. That would normally be the case if it is used with a dual power supply. For example, +5V and -5V would be one possible choice.

Is it possible that you are trying to power the circuit with a single supply?

hgmjr

Hmm.. I do have it in single supply configuration. I'll try out dual. How would I convert this into single supply?

 

Once you get it working with the dual supply we can then look at conversion to a single supply.

The basic requirement is that a voltage reference created that would be equal to your positive supply voltage divided by 2. That voltage reference would then become the point to which you would connect the 10K ohm, the two 10 nFd caps, and the two 1.6K ohm resistors.

hgmjr

 

Thanks! I think I see how to convert it to single supply. I can simply send a VCC/2 output to an opamp voltage follower and just supply the nodes you mentioned above.

For the input stage of the mic, should I make the gain at 1000? I was doing some calculations and noticed that without any amplification the microphone would output around 7 uV at 50 dB SPL re 20 uPa. What do you think?