did i say that they'd work with no power at all? i just thought it wouldn't be that high of a current. you can touch speaker wire, rca, and phono plugs freely (coming out of your amplified receiver) without being electrocuted. they're not amplifying power, they're using electricity to amplify a sound wave that would otherwise be too weak for speakers to reproduce. the microphone itself should be a pretty low current device - it's possible to power them with a few batteries. on the amplifier side, there is probably a lot more electrical current flowing, but you'd have to immerse the amp in water to be shocked by that.