Hi Craig,
Can you expand your question to include more context that would be useful to you?
For instance, are you a singer looking for the right mic for your voice? If so, what types of singing do you do? What's your range? Do you need something for live performance as well as recording? Will you use the mic for location or studio use, or both? What other equipment do you expect to use with your mic?
I don't mean to narrow your question to a specific area, instead I mention these only as examples of what your interests might include. If you mainly want a list of vocal mics, an interesting (although necessarily incomplete) list can be found at
www.3DAudioinc.com in the section that discusses the Mic test CD that Lynn Fuston sells. Here are the mics he tested in his "shoot-out":
ADK A-51 t.III
AEA R44C
AKG C-12
AKG C-414
AKG C-414 B-ULS
AKG C 3000B
AKG Solid Tube
Audio-Technica 4033
Audio-Technica 4047
Audio-Technica 4050
Audio-Technica 4060
BLUE Bottle
BLUE Dragonfly
BLUE Mouse
Brauner VM-1
CAD VSM
Coles 4038
DPA 3541
Earthworks QTC-1
ElectroVoice RE-20
GT Electronics
AM 62
Lawson L251
Lawson L47MP
MM 2000 "MagMic"
Manley Reference Gold
Manley Reference Cardioid
Microtech-Gefell M930
Neumann M-49
Neumann M-147
Neumann M-149
Neumann TLM 103
Neumann U-47
Neumann U-67
Neumann U-87ai
Rode Classic
Royer R-121
Sanken CU-41
Sennheiser 441
Sennheiser MKH-800 P48
Sheffield C-9
Shure KSM-32
Shure KSM-44
Shure SM-7
Shure SM-57
Sony C-800G
Soundelux U95S
Soundelux U99
Soundelux Elux 251
Telefunken ELA M-251
If he were to do it again, I'd love to see him add some of the following as well:
Rode NTK, NT1000, NT2
Sennheiser 421
Electro-Voice RE27 N/D
Studio Projects C-1, C-3, & T-3
Marshall V67 & V77
RCA 77DX
AKG C12VR (current version)
and several of the offerings from Beyerdynamics, Octava, Behringer, SE and others that weren't available even two years ago.
In terms of cost, it depends on whether you're shopping for new or used mics. Although prices on the list above range from $79 for the Shure SM57 to more than $20K for the vintage Telefunken (supposedly -- I guess it's worth that if someone will actually pay that much for it), as a rule of thumb I'd say $350 will buy you a very good condenser or dynamic vocal mic and that you'll need to spend about twice that to make another step up. At about $1900,
the Neumann U87 sets a standard against which many other mics seem to be measured.
Personally, I have strong preferences based on listening, but my recording experience is too limited to make useful recommendations. I'll leave that to my betters on this board.
Best wishes,
Mark H.