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horn microphones

Home / directional microphones / horn microphones

A horn microphone works like a cheerleader’s megaphone in reverse: it uses a large mouth to capture sound, which is then concentrated in a narrow throat where it can be picked-up by a microphone element.

Like shotgun and parabolic microphones, horn microphones can be far more directional than ordinary studio microphones, enabling sound to be picked-up at long ranges or in the presence of high ambient noise.  And horn microphones are easier and cheaper to build than either shotgun or parabolic microphones.

And yet, very little information on horn microphones is available on the web…until now, that is!  Here you’ll find detailed information on how horn microphones work, and even how to design and build them.

Illustration of Acoustic Pressure Horn (APH) and Acoustic Velocity Horn (AVH) microphones
directional microphones | horn microphones

How horn microphones work

ByDIYmicguy October 23, 2020January 31, 2025

Not many people have ever heard of horn microphones (much less know how horn microphones work), but they’re potentially great alternatives to parabolic and shotgun microphones. They offer some unique performance advantages (but also have…

Read More How horn microphones workContinue

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  • Home
    • Blog
    • About the DIY mics guy
    • Contact
  • microphone basics
    • microphone design
      • Basic DIY microphone design—Part 1: the microphone design process
      • Basic DIY microphone design—Part 2: microphone front-end design
      • Basic DIY microphone design—Part 3: microphone back-end design
      • Why you shouldn’t rely on microphone plug-in power
      • The 7 best microphone elements for cost-effective DIY microphones
      • How to use Electret Condenser Microphones
    • microphone performance
      • The 4 key microphone specifications and why they’re important
      • Predicting microphone performance—Part 1: what is microphone SINR?
      • Predicting microphone performance—Part 2: using the SINR
      • Predicting microphone performance—Part 3: microphone range prediction
  • directional microphones
    • How long-range microphones work
    • shotgun microphones
      • A deep look at how shotgun microphones REALLY work
      • The history of the shotgun microphone
    • horn microphones
      • How horn microphones work
    • parabolic microphones
      • The complete guide to parabolic microphones
      • I bought a small parabolic microphone for just 40 dollars off the web, and it really works…sort of
      • The Klover MiK 09: can a small parabolic microphone outperform a shotgun microphone?
    • array microphones
      • How array microphones work