I don't understand microphones...

[Jakalwarrior]

Ok at work I have two headsets. Both high end plantronics, one I own, one the companies. The companies hurts my ears. It is high and shrill. When I turn people up loud enough to understand them, some high pitched sounds start to hurt me. Especially dial tones, button presses, and the operator voice. Blast my ear drums out at high frequency (Lord I wish this phone had volume normalization). My old old one I have from when I worked at a gateway call center has a much more mellow bass filled sound without he high shrillness. BUT it requires an adapter to hook up to the VOIP system and people say they can barely hear me (cell phone users mostly who have their kids screamin and TV going mostly).

Anywho, I used a kitchen knife and cut the end of the old ones microphone off and explosed the bare metal microphone piece. It was a small metal thing that looked like a small fat watch battery with several holes in it. No one could hear a thing from me! Said I sounded like a mouse. I then took a metal pen cap and put it inside of that with the little hole pointed towards my mouth. Now I am back to square one. People can hear me but say I am quiet.

Why do these microphones only work if there is a little hole feeding sound to them? Is there some sort antenna like reflector setup I should be using? is there an optimal hole size?

 

[obobski]

could you post pics of exactly what you've done?

but basically, yeah, I'm thinking you've sorta got it answered in your question (if I understand you right), a microphone is (in a basic sense) a speaker run "backwards", so it needs to be able to receive sound directed at it, and the enclosure geometry can influence that