Sorry not sure if this is the right section for impedance question.
Years ego I've build tube preamp that I use with SM57mic. I have 100k input impedance on it. Some might say that's too high since modern preamps have about 1.5k. I've done many tests when building the preamp, trying impedance from 1k to 100k. 100k gives me the highest output and more top end with the SM57 so that how I use it all the time.
So question is why modern preamps use such low imedance when it seems to slightly "choke" the mic sound and also increases noise levels since the preamp needs to be turned up for higher gain to get same levels?
Years ego I've build tube preamp that I use with SM57mic. I have 100k input impedance on it. Some might say that's too high since modern preamps have about 1.5k. I've done many tests when building the preamp, trying impedance from 1k to 100k. 100k gives me the highest output and more top end with the SM57 so that how I use it all the time.
So question is why modern preamps use such low imedance when it seems to slightly "choke" the mic sound and also increases noise levels since the preamp needs to be turned up for higher gain to get same levels?
People who are familiar with their mics are likely to expect the sound of the lower impedance input because that's been the norm. For a producer or sound engineer, the mic is an instrument like everything else and it has its own tonal coloration. Use the impedance that gives you the most useful sound.
1.5k seems awfully low for a nominally 310 ohm microphone (Shure spec sheet here: https://www.shureasia.com/dmsfiles/default/shure/products/microphones/user_guides/sm/sm57_specsheet ).
I would suggest that something like 10k would be the minimum reasonable input impedance. Note that the mic itself will shunt away any thermal noise from the 10k input impedance, so there is no downside to it's use.
Possibly more relevant, the SM57/SM58 has a huge and long-standing reputation among musicians and audio engineers, which is almost entirely unjustified. It's actually a pretty awful-sounding mic. Just take a look at the phenomenally ugly frequency response in the spec sheet (link above) to see why it sounds so nasty - boomy, dull, and shrieky all at the same time.
The nasty frequency response in the spec sheet has already been smoothed, so the real frequency response is even more ragged and peaky in the treble range. The spec sheet frequency response curve also doesn't seem to include proximity effect, which boosts the bass by maybe 10 dB or more if a singer moves in closer to the mic. Most soundmen will immediately dial in a massive bass cut as soon as they see an SM58 on the other end of the mic cable.
So trying to make an SM58/SM57 sound good for vocals is very much a case of putting lipstick on a pig. Yes, I know that a handful of famous singers have been linked with this mic (probably causing their sound engineers to tear their hair out in dismay.) But fundamentally, it is a bad mic, and you're never going to get a very good sound out of it, no matter what impedance you feed it into.
You may get a very recognizable sound, though: this particular bad mic has been used for so long by so many people that the sound may be quite familiar. Just like a certain famous brand of awful-tasting, mushy, canned chicken noodle soup, familiarity is not to be mistaken for quality, however!
-Gnobuddy
Maybe there´s a reason for Rock singers to keep using them decade after decade and never ever using, say, way more perfect Neumann/Telefunken U47 capacitor microphones.
And that´s not for lack of familiarity, they massively use these and their clones at the recording studio since forever, so ....
Those very characteristics you dislike so much are in fact valuable assets on a live stage:
* the high mids peak gives them a "presence peak", cutting, forward sound, and better voice intelligibility which is important in a noisy loud stage to help voice cut through.
* proximity effect lets sound engineer cut bass 10dB as you say, *all* bass including unwanted drums and bass guitar, room reflections and mud, plus easy to feedback low frequencies, while does not sound thin but warm , precisely *thanks* to proximity effect.
From the sound engineer´s point of view, a Godsend.
So not everything which looks good or bad in a datasheet is automatically good or bad on stage.
And that´s not for lack of familiarity, they massively use these and their clones at the recording studio since forever, so ....
Those very characteristics you dislike so much are in fact valuable assets on a live stage:
* the high mids peak gives them a "presence peak", cutting, forward sound, and better voice intelligibility which is important in a noisy loud stage to help voice cut through.
* proximity effect lets sound engineer cut bass 10dB as you say, *all* bass including unwanted drums and bass guitar, room reflections and mud, plus easy to feedback low frequencies, while does not sound thin but warm , precisely *thanks* to proximity effect.
From the sound engineer´s point of view, a Godsend.
So not everything which looks good or bad in a datasheet is automatically good or bad on stage.
The one advantage of these awful Shure mics seems to be that they can be used in high ambient SPL situations - the typical live rock performance you mention. (I'm told they're also good for hammering nails into wood. 😀 )
The trouble is, sound quality suffers a lot with these. Live rock concerts have traditionally been notorious for bad sound - often you can't even make out the words to the songs.
That SM58 midrange peak (actually a collection of several separate peaks, averaged a bit in the spec sheet) also produces "shrieky" sound that cannot be fixed, especially on soprano female voices. High treble is missing, so there is little "air" in the sound; good singers who know how to use their "head voice" will have their vocal tone ruined by the SM58.
Meantime, tenors and baritones using SM58's often sound as though they are singing from the bottom of a barrel; massive bass-cut on the mixing board may tame this somewhat, but it is unlikely that a simple Baxandall bass control will accurately cancel the SM58 proximity bass boost. So you get an uneven and unpredictable low frequency response at best.
Evidently all this doesn't bother many musicians, and most listeners. But it does bother some, and there are better choices available today (no, not WW-II era Neumanns!), if ear-bleeding loudness is not the first and last priority.
For instance, here are the Milk Carton Kids live on stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL8eBrhVTJ4
And here is Della Mae: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPJLJIb_Rgo
Both bands have excellent live sound, audibly much better than anything you can get from those famous SM58's. Not coincidentally, both bands use a much better microphone; a little on-line sleuthing on my part turned up this: Edwina ? Ear Trumpet Labs
For my own live music use, I prefer an inexpensive condenser mic that sounds far superior to an SM58, copes quite well with the SPL levels we use, and costs one-tenth as much as an Ear Trumpet Labs Edwina: https://www.amazon.com/Nady-10407-97-SPC-25-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B0002E5180
The Nady SPC-25 is not as robust as an SM58, and is utterly useless for hammering nails into the stage. But when it comes to good live sound quality, it delivers much better results.
-Gnobuddy
The trouble is, sound quality suffers a lot with these. Live rock concerts have traditionally been notorious for bad sound - often you can't even make out the words to the songs.
That SM58 midrange peak (actually a collection of several separate peaks, averaged a bit in the spec sheet) also produces "shrieky" sound that cannot be fixed, especially on soprano female voices. High treble is missing, so there is little "air" in the sound; good singers who know how to use their "head voice" will have their vocal tone ruined by the SM58.
Meantime, tenors and baritones using SM58's often sound as though they are singing from the bottom of a barrel; massive bass-cut on the mixing board may tame this somewhat, but it is unlikely that a simple Baxandall bass control will accurately cancel the SM58 proximity bass boost. So you get an uneven and unpredictable low frequency response at best.
Evidently all this doesn't bother many musicians, and most listeners. But it does bother some, and there are better choices available today (no, not WW-II era Neumanns!), if ear-bleeding loudness is not the first and last priority.
For instance, here are the Milk Carton Kids live on stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL8eBrhVTJ4
And here is Della Mae: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPJLJIb_Rgo
Both bands have excellent live sound, audibly much better than anything you can get from those famous SM58's. Not coincidentally, both bands use a much better microphone; a little on-line sleuthing on my part turned up this: Edwina ? Ear Trumpet Labs
For my own live music use, I prefer an inexpensive condenser mic that sounds far superior to an SM58, copes quite well with the SPL levels we use, and costs one-tenth as much as an Ear Trumpet Labs Edwina: https://www.amazon.com/Nady-10407-97-SPC-25-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B0002E5180
The Nady SPC-25 is not as robust as an SM58, and is utterly useless for hammering nails into the stage. But when it comes to good live sound quality, it delivers much better results.
-Gnobuddy
Let us say we are putting lipstick on a pig, just so this doesn;t turn into an argument , and distracting the OP question. But since that pig is my sister, perhaps we can realize we are stuck with her.
100k? When I see 100k, I think unbalanced Hi-Z inputs, like on very old mixers. In the day, when we encountered that, we added a impedance matching transformer at the input. Something like this one:
Of course you can include an input transformer in your circuits instead.
We can sniff at mics, but when a recording sounds bad, I am much more inclined to blame the sound engineer than the microphone. Most professional will not use the random junk mics the average band carries around. And while I don't follow who used what on recordings these days, I do see plenty of SM57s and some SM58s used on television sound.
100k? When I see 100k, I think unbalanced Hi-Z inputs, like on very old mixers. In the day, when we encountered that, we added a impedance matching transformer at the input. Something like this one:
Of course you can include an input transformer in your circuits instead.
We can sniff at mics, but when a recording sounds bad, I am much more inclined to blame the sound engineer than the microphone. Most professional will not use the random junk mics the average band carries around. And while I don't follow who used what on recordings these days, I do see plenty of SM57s and some SM58s used on television sound.
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Lol this turned to SM57 debate. I've been using SM57s for years so I know reasonably well what it can do for me and how to treat it. I must agree that it is a peaky mic specially on vocals, it also can produce some annoying midrange frequencies. It is a very alive sounding mic. But I find that lot of that can be sorted with touch EQ if needed. Why do I put up with it? Because some other mics I used had smoother, softer sound but they just wouldn't cut through the mix and EQing them only made them sound bad. It also suits the music I do, vintage rock. If I did clean country, opera or jazz I probably wouldn't use SM57 because it's too much up front. I wouldn't mind having better mics but I take this one as a Swiss knife that can do it all and do it reasonably well. I think it's good compromise without having to spend hundredths for something "maybe" little better.
Anyone ever tried Ronette GS210? I got one here but no cable so wonder if it's worth perusing or if it's just a mic for home reel to reel recordings from 50's. Looks nice on the shelf tho 🙂
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That wasn't my intention. Please allow me to explain what I was thinking.
A mic with a nominal 300 ohm impedance should be quite happy feeding into any impedance that is considerably larger than 300 ohm - say 3k ohms or higher. Shure doesn't provide an impedance curve, or give us an effective series inductance, or state at what frequency the impedance is 300 ohms. Since it's a moving coil mic, we can assume the source impedance will rise with frequency, but Shure doesn't give us enough information to know exactly how much.
Still, if the mic is feeding into a preamp input impedance of 3k or higher, we can almost guarantee that the preamp is not causing any significant treble loss. An input impedance larger than 3k - 10k at most won't make any difference to the sound.
From your original post, where you were experimenting with higher and higher input impedance, and preferring the results, I guessed that what was happening was that the extreme highs were inadequate for your tastes, and you were searching for a way to get better high-frequency response out of your mic.
That is more or less a non-starter with this mic, because it's treble response starts to fall above 5 kHz, and plunges steeply above 10 kHz. You can't get extended high-frequencies out of an SM57, because the mic is physically incapable of generating them (moving parts are too heavy).
That's why I discussed the problems with mic itself; I felt you were unlikely to get what you were looking for from this mic, and that the attempt to use preamp input impedances higher than a few kilo ohms was futile.
Now, let's consider something else. What happens to the frequency response of a moving-coil microphone when you raise the preamp input impedance?
We all know about "damping factor" when it comes to amplifiers driving moving-coil loudspeakers. If the speaker is connected to a low impedance, then the back-emf generated when the cone moves drives a current through the voice coil, that improves damping, providing a flatter frequency response and improved sound. (There is already some damping in the speaker, caused by mechanical components like the spider and surround; the magnetic damping simply adds to this.)
A moving coil microphone works exactly like a moving coil loudspeaker in this regard. There is some mechanical damping built in, due to the plastic diaphragm. In addition, if you connect the mic to a low enough load impedance, then damping current can flow through the microphone coil. Electromagnetic theory says the improved damping should smooth out irregularities in the frequency response to at least some degree.
Now, from the extremely peaky frequency response of the SM58, it's obvious that this is a microphone lacking enough internal mechanical damping. The peaks are evidence of poorly controlled mechanical resonances, where the weight of the voice coil and floppiness of the plastic diaphragm interact to cause resonances.
So what happens if we connect an SM58 to a rather low input impedance - maybe around the 600 ohm mark, as Shure originally intended, decades ago? We know there will be increased electromagnetic damping, perhaps this will help to reduce those nasty resonant peaks? Maybe the mic would be at least a little better, loaded this way?
It turns out that one Paul Stamler had the same thought, conducted some experiments to find out, and wrote an article in Recording magazine describing his results:
- Shure SM57 Impedance Modification : Recording Magazine -
The bottom line is that Stamler's experiments found that using a quite low 600 ohm (not kilo ohm) load considerably improved a Shure SM58, making it cleaner, more neutral, less peaky, less harsh-sounding.
So what do we make of your (6V6dude) preference for a very much higher preamp input impedance? I can think of only one explanation, you actually like the extremely peaky, shrieky, characteristics of the SM58, and have found a way to maximize them, by making sure there is no additional electromagnetic damping from the preamp!
But that realization suggests an answer to the original question that 6V6dude asked in his original post: why do modern preamps use rather low input impedances? Because that produces the cleanest response from dynamic mics, by improving the mechanical damping felt by the diaphragm!
The SM58 is well-loved by millions, and that is an undeniable fact, no matter what my own opinions on the subject. Very few will criticize the choice of an SM58, as it's an established standard, and has been so for decades.
That said, if you look closer, it is a badly flawed mic, based on ancient and obsolete materials technology, from an era when P.A. systems and recording equipment often had very little response above 7 or 8 kHz. Modern audio equipment sharply reveals it's audible shortcomings, but many people have become accustomed to the way these mic's sound.
Listening to the Milk Carton Kids and Della Mae, it's clear the Ear Trumpet Labs "Edwina" sounds much better than an SM58. It's also quite expensive, at $550.
But you don't have to spend five hundred bucks to sound better than an SM58; the Nady mic I linked in a previous post costs fifty bucks - about half as much as an SM58. And it sounds far, cleaner, smoother, and more extended. It's also considerably more sensitive, you can sing into it from a few inches away and get excellent results, without excessive amounts of proximity effect.
The SPC-25 won't "cut through a mix"; rather, it will accurately reproduce the sound you put in front of it. It won't tolerate extremely high SPL - it will overload with extremely loud singers, never mind insanely loud guitar amps. So it may not be what you want.
By the way, I came to my mic decision without ever seeing the SM58 spec sheet; to my ears, the SM58 (used on vocals) just sounds bad much of the time. When I started singing some years ago, I needed a mic of my own, but I quickly found out that I didn't like the sound of the SM58 everyone recommended to me.
Most other brands of dynamic mics on the market try to imitate the sound of the SM58, which I dislike. So I bought my first Nady SPC-25 (a condenser mic) over the Internet as a total gamble. Once I tried the SPC-25, I was sold - to me, it's an absolutely huge improvement over an SM58. Not a subtle one.
But if you actually prefer the sound of an SM58 with no additional electromagnetic damping, there is going to be no substitute for the real thing!
So we come back to the usual thing: as the old saying goes, "one man's meat is another man's poison", or, in this case, one person's preferred microphone is another person's auditory nightmare! 😀
-Gnobuddy
I've not gone as low as 600ohm when I was testing it but will strap resistor across the lead to try that. But there is something to be said about the damping factor you've mentioned. I've never be a big fan of very tight sounding speakers or too much negative feedback particularity in tube amps. To me it sound too constrained. I suppose me liking the high impedance on SM57 better probably reflects the sound I like to get from my audio - more open rather than tight. That's not to say that I wouldn't mind a different type of mic that would be smoother for certain recordings. The Nady sounds very interesting specially for the price, I'll research it further, thanks.
Fact is that everything in my studio is setup for a particular sound, it took me years to get there so choosing another mic is a big deal. Yes I know the SM57 has shortcomings but I never did search for anything better because looking for particular sound is like looking for a needle in a hay stack. I think I'd like something that does sound like the SM57 but is smoother without loosing the cut through, but I can't buy every mic there is just to try it so I'll probably never find by holly grail.
Fact is that everything in my studio is setup for a particular sound, it took me years to get there so choosing another mic is a big deal. Yes I know the SM57 has shortcomings but I never did search for anything better because looking for particular sound is like looking for a needle in a hay stack. I think I'd like something that does sound like the SM57 but is smoother without loosing the cut through, but I can't buy every mic there is just to try it so I'll probably never find by holly grail.
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I did the test. 600ohm was pretty much the same as 1K to my ears so here are the results and quiet drastic they are. With 1K there is minor loss to the top end but sound is much more compressed. Recorded vocals are much easier to mix this way. You can clearly see the peaking of the SM57 with 100k and the compression with 1K on the recorded vocals. Downside is there is about 30% loss of output as can be seen.
There wasn't much of difference when I recorded distorted guitar apart from HF loss but I think for clean sounds the low impedance is better
so I'm gonna put switch on my preamp I shouold have done a long ego.
There wasn't much of difference when I recorded distorted guitar apart from HF loss but I think for clean sounds the low impedance is better
so I'm gonna put switch on my preamp I shouold have done a long ego.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Yes, quite drastic! 🙂
I think it is actually the opposite, with 1k the mic is relatively accurate, while with 100k the mic is ringing wildly at it's numerous treble resonant frequencies, so you get a large amount of spurious treble output that has nothing to do with the actual sound in front of the microphone.
This treble ringing and resonance, I think, is what I hear as the "shrieky" sound of the SM58 - some sort of unpleasant treble colouration added to the sound.
That's only about 3 dB, not much at all. And, I bet you, the missing 3 dB was mostly noise - nasty, shrieky, ringing treble, caused by the cheap plastic mic diaphragm fluttering wildly in the breeze.
Makes sense, electric guitar with 80% or more total harmonic distortion will overpower the smaller amount of distortion from the mic.
In my quite limited experience, almost any mic seems to be usable for recording heavily distorted guitar - it's not a subtle sound, so it's easy to record with any mic!
That sounds like an excellent idea, now you'll have a more versatile setup. Cool!
-Gnobuddy
I am glad I started this thread. It accidentally turned it to an excellent experiment that other will likely find very useful too.
As you mentioned "is what I hear as the "shrieky" sound of the SM58" this is exactly what I hear and it was always annoying on vocals because it took extra compression and EQ to fix it. I just got used to doing that.
And the 3db loss. I did few more tests and found that I need to use less compression with the 1k load so at the end I end up with the same noise floor so it's good.
I all ready put a switch in the preamp, I used 1.8k. From my searches it seems that most common loads are 1.5-2k so I went in the middle of the road just be on safe side in case some mic I might use wouldn't like 1k. I've not tested it yet but think the 0.8k shouldn't make much, if any difference at all. I certain hope so since I all ready did the work 🙂
By the way while testing all this, I've tried two Behringer XM2000 mics I have but never use. Not a good sound compared to SM57, strangest thing is that both Behringers sound completely different which says a lot about the production quality.
As you mentioned "is what I hear as the "shrieky" sound of the SM58" this is exactly what I hear and it was always annoying on vocals because it took extra compression and EQ to fix it. I just got used to doing that.
And the 3db loss. I did few more tests and found that I need to use less compression with the 1k load so at the end I end up with the same noise floor so it's good.
I all ready put a switch in the preamp, I used 1.8k. From my searches it seems that most common loads are 1.5-2k so I went in the middle of the road just be on safe side in case some mic I might use wouldn't like 1k. I've not tested it yet but think the 0.8k shouldn't make much, if any difference at all. I certain hope so since I all ready did the work 🙂
By the way while testing all this, I've tried two Behringer XM2000 mics I have but never use. Not a good sound compared to SM57, strangest thing is that both Behringers sound completely different which says a lot about the production quality.
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This is what I hear from most experienced soundmen. They have all been working with SM58s for years, so as soon as they see one, they automatically dial in a huge bass cut (often a full -10 to -15 dB 😱), and their preferred large midrange and treble corrections.
And over time, they forget that a good mic would not need so much corrective EQ!
For a year or so I was the soundman for our little jam group. There were a mix of Shure SM58s, a couple of Sennheiser E835s, and three of the Nady SPC-25s, usually six to eight microphones total.
I had to dial in heavy corrective EQ for all the Shures and Sennheisers, just to remove the boomy bass and shrieky upper midrange/lower treble. But the SPC-25s all sounded very good with tone controls set flat.
Usually I would dial in a little EQ for the Nadys, but that was only to flatter each individual singers voice. For instance, if a singer sounds slightly nasal, a little midrange boost will often improve the vocal quality.
Yikes! Yeah, that's very telling!
The SM58s sound horrible, but at least you know they are solidly made, and consistently sound horrible! 😀
-Gnobuddy
I wouldn't say horrible, at least from my personal experience but it has it's quirks that user needs to be familiar with. One needs to work this mic, not just set it and forget it. Might be hard to believe but that "peakiness" is a useful thing to achieve certain effect on recording, other times it it can be just annoying tho. When I used SM57s live it was great sounding, only problem for me was the huge proximity effect since I like to get really close to the mic. This got better when I used sm58 since the capsule is further away but still not far enough for me. When I play live I eat mics, that's my problem. Pop cover stops me from that in a studio.
Did few more tests today, here is an audio clip of guitar using 1.8k impedance - https://clyp.it/lceepaee
and here is the same with 100k impedance - https://clyp.it/jss1vpha
It's just quick test so ignore that bad playing. I've put it in a mix because a guitar track on it's own won't show how it really sounds in a mix. Notice that the 100k impedance has more open sound and more liveliness to it, particularly the lower picked string comes out in "vintage" style sound. Makes me wonder if they often used high impedances in 60's because that's the tonality I hear from lot of the old recordings.
and here is the same with 100k impedance - https://clyp.it/jss1vpha
It's just quick test so ignore that bad playing. I've put it in a mix because a guitar track on it's own won't show how it really sounds in a mix. Notice that the 100k impedance has more open sound and more liveliness to it, particularly the lower picked string comes out in "vintage" style sound. Makes me wonder if they often used high impedances in 60's because that's the tonality I hear from lot of the old recordings.
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Personally, I prefer the recording you made with the 1.8k impedance, and it's quite a strong preference for me. The other recording actually hurts my ears after a few seconds of listening, it sounds so harsh to me. I could not listen to that sound for long without actual physical discomfort (earache and headache).
For me, the 2nd recording isn't open and lively, it's harsh and grating. Actually quite unpleasant, though I have heard similar tones on many other recordings.
I agree with you that a lot of old recordings have a very harsh sound, similar to the recording you made with the 100k impedance. I always assumed that a lot of that harshness came from the record playback process itself - heavy tracking distortion, because a record playback stylus doesn't follow the same path as the cutting styles that made the record, because the cutting stylus has knife-sharp edges, and the playback tip is circular or elliptical. Often the voices and other sounds on the record have the same harshness.
High input impedances in some vintage mic preamps is certainly a possibility, probably those old valve circuits had megohm grid bias resistors. They might also have been using step-up transformers between mic and (valve) preamp, which would have effectively lowered the preamp impedance, as seen by the microphone. Maybe the transformer lowered the millions-of-ohms valve input impedance down to the hundreds-of-thousands-of-ohms level you're talking about.
-Gnobuddy
For me, the 2nd recording isn't open and lively, it's harsh and grating. Actually quite unpleasant, though I have heard similar tones on many other recordings.
I agree with you that a lot of old recordings have a very harsh sound, similar to the recording you made with the 100k impedance. I always assumed that a lot of that harshness came from the record playback process itself - heavy tracking distortion, because a record playback stylus doesn't follow the same path as the cutting styles that made the record, because the cutting stylus has knife-sharp edges, and the playback tip is circular or elliptical. Often the voices and other sounds on the record have the same harshness.
High input impedances in some vintage mic preamps is certainly a possibility, probably those old valve circuits had megohm grid bias resistors. They might also have been using step-up transformers between mic and (valve) preamp, which would have effectively lowered the preamp impedance, as seen by the microphone. Maybe the transformer lowered the millions-of-ohms valve input impedance down to the hundreds-of-thousands-of-ohms level you're talking about.
-Gnobuddy
Yeah, I can not be sure of how they recorded in 60's with the gear they had. Finding any technical info is pretty hard. It's just what my ears tell me and perhaps my little experiment here shows that things weren't always done in today's "standard". I am sure that some good seasoned engineers know but they aren't talking.
Nady SP-25: "My first SPC-25 was damaged, most probably by a singer who blew into the microphone to test it. After that "test" the mic buzzed slightly on some notes"
I doubt that would happen with an SM-58. Seems pretty fragile to me.
I doubt that would happen with an SM-58. Seems pretty fragile to me.
You're probably right. The SM-58 is ideal for hammering nails into stages, and it's probably also the ideal mic to use during a hurricane. 🙂
To make this possible, the SM-58 diaphragm is apparently made of shoe-leather, or maybe used truck tyres. Which probably also accounts for the wonderful sound quality, and poor sensitivity, of the mic. 😀
Certainly. All good mics are fragile to some degree. You want very little moving mass in a good mic, so that it is sensitive, and able to respond accurately to high frequencies.
So all good mics have a thin little wisp of a diaphragm. If you blow on it, you will rupture or damage it. Ergo, don't blow into microphones to test them! Ever!
The robustness of the SM-58 is probably a major reason why sound-men hand them out to drunken or drugged-out rock singers: they're more likely to survive being physically abused by a clumsy, clueless singer under the influence.
But if you're not hammering nails, not in a hurricane, and not dealing with a drugged-out singer, why put up with the horrid (to me) sound quality of an SM-58?
-Gnobuddy
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