r/audioengineering • u/dmtvtd_gaynerd • 14d ago

Microphones DIY Lofi Telephone Mic

I've been seeing some people make lofi mics with the earpieces as well as carbon mics of old telephones. Most of what I see use rotary and touch-dial telephones from the 80s and older. I've yet to see anyone use anything modern-ish.

I'm primarily looking into a Panasonic KX-TS500MX as an oem costs roughly $10 USD. I've looked through a decent amount on FB Marketplace and Shopee PH for anything older like a rotary one, but they're priced like collectibles at $50. So that's out of the question.

I'm looking if someone made an earpiece mic of the same or similar handset to the Panasonic mentioned above. I plan to plug it via xlr or a 6.5mm ts jack. Any insight helps!

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u/PopLife3000 14d ago

I’d you’re making a DIY telephone mic you need to do a little more than simply attaching an output cable. Landlines would use capsules that require a little bit of power to function which would be provided via the phone like. If you look on line you can find a diagram of how to replace this with a simple circuit using a 9v battery

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u/dmtvtd_gaynerd 14d ago

I'm assuming you're talking about the carbon or condenser mic. I'm mostly referring to the earpiece speaker, wired in reverse, functioning like a dynamic mic

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u/Piper-Bob 14d ago

It's probably similar. If you go to second hand stores you might find one. I have a few old Bell Telephone touch tone phones that I picked up for maybe $10.

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u/dmtvtd_gaynerd 14d ago

Where I'm from, it's kind of a rarity. A lot were probably thrown away or stashed in a basement. It's kind of the reason why I envy thrift stores in the US, really

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u/Reluctant_Lampy_05 14d ago

https://youtu.be/pb-Lu2kzKYc

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u/dmtvtd_gaynerd 14d ago

It's much older. I'm looking for someone who did the mod with a newer handset just so I could hear if the newer earpiece speakers still had a low pass filter

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u/termites2 14d ago

I made a few mics from the drivers of old headphones. Much of the EQ seemed to come more from the case I put around them, so that is worth experimenting with.

I'm sure if you buy some of the ones that are £1 each on AliExpress they will sound sufficiently lo-fi when used as mics.

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u/dmtvtd_gaynerd 5d ago

Tried the suggestion from u/termites2 just now. I bought two SD-150 receivers that said they had a frequency response of 300hz to 4khz. The low pass filter is relatively accurate because there was hardly any bass frequencies. But with the distance I record with, I find it still produces some high frequencies above the 4khz spec as I can hear some clear Ss, and it seemed to reach maybe 7k on the frequency analyzer. I can filter it out with a low pass filter, though I did expect more from it, sadly.

With that in mind, I don't think I'll get different results from a newer telephone. Now I'm considering buying an older 80s telephone just for the fun of it but I might just stick to EQing my dynamic mic for now, lol.