Microphone Recommendations

[Shaun]

It's time to replace my mic.

My current mics served me well (sm58 vocal artist radio mic), I'm now looking for a quality replacement. I'm willing to pay anything up to about £400 for a good quality mic and would love to hear your recommendations.

What mic are you using now?
What mic would be your next purchase?.

Cheers :) :beer:

[Danno13]

I have a Senheisser e825s - £40

Really can't see the point in spending £400 on a mic for just DJ use! It may potentially sound fantastic.. but surely everything else on the sound chain would have to be of the same quality to get any benefit over cheaper mics?? And that would work out at one hell of an overkill rig for a mobile disco!

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I use a UHF SM58 and can't fault it. Shure have just bough new versions of them out I believe, so the version I've got should have dropped in price maybe.

I paid £260 and they were retailing at just under £300 at the time.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I have a Senheisser e825s - £40

Really can't see the point in spending £400 on a mic for just DJ use!

So, in the same vein Danno, why do you use Martin Audio speakers then?

(And yes, I know you got them cheap!)

I don't understand why people would spend thousands on a sound system and then £40 on a mic!

[Have a disco]

Afraid I have always used an SM58 for hand mic and radio mic but have used akg for radio as well none of these have ever let me down

[Danno13]

I see your point.. but to my ears the mic i have sounds fine (even more so since the speaker upgrade..), so i don't personally think it would be worth spending any more. And the reason for upgrading speakers is more so the music sounds better really.. the fact that the mic sounds better is just an added bonus (since i never had problems with not being heard before..)

I just think £400 is alot to spend on a mic when there might not be any noticable difference..

[CRAZY K]

Unless you are a professional singer where maximum vocal quality is needed then probably another Shure would be plenty of quality for DJ/ Speeches.

I use the JTS hand held radio mike and that sounds pretty good to me, costs just under £200. Rice has the slightly better one.

Get UHF not VHF

Dont get me started on radio mike headsets though :mad:

CRAZY K

[Denty]

AKG C1000 - smooth as a baby's.............

[A1DL]

For high quality mic for general purpose use, the SM58 has still got to be one of the top, if not the top contender.

[DMX Will]

Either a:

Sennheiser Evolution Mic
or another SM58

Don't spend more than £100 on a cable mic, upgrade something else for the other 300. What mixer/speaker/amp setup are you using Shaun?

[Shaun]

Thanks for the feedback so far guys, I'm leaning more towards another sm58, just wanted to hear others opinions before making the purchase. Thanks :)

[djbigdevs]

Get UHF not VHF

What's the difference?

Tried looking on the Technical help section but couldn't see any topics. If someone could point me in the direction of a thread on this (if there is one), I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

[spin mobile disco]

Difference is that uhf is less likely to get interfearence from local cab companies and mobile phones etc. Also range is normally greater

[CRAZY K]

Spot on Spin!

Its a sort of Insurance against being made to look unprofessional. :teeth:

Like at the end of the evening someone wants to thank you for doing a great job and just as they speak a Mini cab message comes over the PA :sad:

Rather destroys the image of being a Professional.

Having said that a lot of people say they have never had problems with VHF --its just that it might catch you out when you least need it!

CRAZY K

[spin mobile disco]

I have a Senheisser e825s - £40

Really can't see the point in spending £400 on a mic for just DJ use! It may potentially sound fantastic.. but surely everything else on the sound chain would have to be of the same quality to get any benefit over cheaper mics?? And that would work out at one hell of an overkill rig for a mobile disco!

I have one of these mics as well, paid £49.99 for it and must be the best mic I have owned so far. Just cause it may be a bit cheaper than some the evolution mic outperforms a lot of mics. And as Will said why pay more the quality is almost if not already studio quality. I had a philips mic and that was ok , tried a sony that was a bit better had a numark and again a bit better. Tried my brothers sm and blew my mic at the time away. It was like comparing a mini to lotus esprite. So I went out and bought a Senheisser evolution e825s from maplin (yeah I know make sign of cross and ward off evil eye).
And to be honest other than the sm is a bit louder for same volume level I personally cant tell the difference in quality. Im sure after nearly 20 years of discoing my hearing isnt what it might be these days but I do really like the Evelolution mic.

Well worth money and wouldnt want to pay any more.

[DK Karaoke]

If the mic is for your own use, or for those special announcements at weddings etc., then get a good one. Say from £100 to £200. If its for joe public using in karaoke, then get the cheapest best, as you will find they will be banged, kicked, dropped etc., and this is in spite of you telling them not to do it. All drunk of course.

The other thing is get yourself a soldering iron, so you can mend the breaks in the cables, else you will find yourself spending a lot of money replacing mic cables very often.

DK