Patent ID: 8229132

Claim:
A microphone apparatus comprising: a plurality of microphone units disposed at locations with the same acoustic conditions; and a plurality of switching units, each of the switching units connected to a respective microphone unit, each of the switching unit including a switch and a plurality of switching contacts, and each switching contact including a contact to each of the plurality of microphone units for switching sequentially an audio signal transformed in each of the microphone units to generate an output signal, before an output level of the audio signal transformed in each of the microphone units saturates, wherein the switches are moveable contacts for performing synchronous switching operations repeatedly at a certain time interval in order of the switching contacts corresponding to the plurality of microphone units for switching sequentially, and wherein only one switching contact of the switching contacts of each of the switching units is connected to a first output terminal and the other switching contacts of each of the switching units are connected to a second output terminal different from the first output terminal, and wherein the first and second output terminals comprise an output line.