I just did some tracks looking at a MXL V67G and the KSM44 was very noticeable in being much quieter.
It doesnt mean the KSM44 sounds better on sources. It might win in total silence engineering spec contest, but whats that mean? who cares?
for a typical garage band rock/indie /country kind of recording "once the drummer starts playing" this miniscule noise floor stuff means nothing to me.
as Rob mentioned distance , made me think of a choir or symphony hall recording with 25 or more mics...quiet, silence opera like, so imagine a bunch of mics with high noise floor recording a symphony or quartet, or quiet passages all sitting idle going SSHSHHHHHHHHSSSHHHSSSSSSSSSSSHHSS. So in this environment it would be great to have low noise mics right? low noise everything, as possible.
But even classical once it gets going the miniscule -db of noise floor isnt an issue on one mic....Ive never recorded large venues but simple sense would imagine the addition, accumulative noise of 25 mics versus 1 mic is louder noise.
being a gearhead its nice having a low noise mic to know what one sounds like.
KSM44 has decent specs for this(7db). Ive read the Rode NT1? is the quiet noise floor mic too. I ran a comparison as I said with
MXL V67G (20db) but the noise floor was noticeable only in a dead silence comparison.
from a engineers perspective, better specs is quality....noise floor specs etc...better built. better metal, better internals...specs are military grade top notch.
from a creative brain subjective color and sound shaping recording with a drummer banging away my noisy single coil Jazz bass plugged in..the neighbors dog barking.......the mic noise floor of the mic is pretty low on the problem list for me.
add...the self noise specs on the classic U47 and 67 arent very good, either. 16 to 24db...