The 25 Greatest Gadgets Created By Black Inventors

7. Electroacoustic Transducer Electret Microphone

Inventor: James Edward West
Year: 1962
If there were one instrument that could define the music (or audio) industry, it would fittingly be the microphone. Dr. James Edward Maceo West introduced a more compact and cost-effect version of the traditional acoustic-to-electric transducer, one which utilized an electret film on one side and converted sound into high-fidelity signals, thereby creating better acoustics and sound. The technology would go on to be used worldwide in telephones and tape records.