Phantom power.

[laserblazer]

Can a soundcard supply power to a microphone through a stereo 3.5mm jack?

[Andrew_C]

Maybe, but I don't recall ever seeing one. You can get phantom power supplies, but I've never seen one with a 3.5mm jack on it, only XLR.

[nicholab]

No you will need an external or a pre-amp. You could make one 3.5mm to xlr if you wanted.

[soveryapt]

That depends on the microphone jack .. you can get small microphones that can, where it is put out, draw power from a 3.5mm input, but it's generally a lot lower than the 48v you would need for a larger condensor mic .. My old MiniDisk Recorder had the function on it ..

[laserblazer]

The reason I asked was that I got some cheap tieclip mics that I assumed were dynamic. However, they are very intermittent and it was only when I looked more closely at the spec. that I saw they were electret. So now I'm wondering if the problem is that they are cheap (Probable) or that there's a problem with the power supply.

[laserblazer]

The tieclips often have little watch batteries in the case, or a separate module.

 

That's what I would have expected but these are powered from the soundcard apparently.