The electrical double layer can be regarded as behaving like a parallel plate capacitor with a compressible dielectric filling. When sound waves induce a local pressure variation, the spacing of the plates varies at the frequency of the excitation, generating an AC displacement current normal to the interface. For practical reasons this is most readily observed at a conducting surface. It is therefore possible to use an electrode immersed in a conducting electrolyte as a microphone, or indeed as a loudspeaker when the effect is applied in reverse.