RideTheCrash said:
The shop my wife works at (like a thrift store almost) is selling a
Shure SM58. I just wonder if it's just old or a fake because it looks different from every other one I've seen. The mic is second hand, no box as far as I know.
The mic body has sort of a texture to it, it's not smooth like I'm used to seeing them. The band is a sticker I guess, sort of coming off a little on one end, but it has small print on it "SHURE SM58". Probably some other stuff but that's all I remember. It did have three wires inside though (yellow, green, black). My guess is that it's an older style?
It is probably legit. The body on every SM58 I've used is slightly textured. IIRC, the more recent ones are more textured than older ones, but I could have that backwards. You can't tell anything by that.
Does this mic have a switch? The reason I ask is that the fake ones I've heard about were all fake SM58S mics, not SM58 mics. (They had on-off switches.)
The only detailed info I've found about fake Shure mics is here:
http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Beware-Fake-Shure-SM58-Microphones_W0QQugidZ10000000001718736
Unfortunately, there are so many blatant errors in that post that it probably isn't useful in identifying the fake mics.
A quick list of things to look for:
Real Shure mics have grey foam inside the ball, fake ones have black. Fake mics often have a sticker that says that the warranty is void if you unscrew the top. I suspect that these two points are legit.
Their comment about the length is incorrect. Real Shure mics are only 6 3/8 inches, not 10 inches as claimed. The
wireless version of the SM58 is 10 inches. If the longer (8") mic sounded better, then the poster got them backwards and liked the sound of the fake one better....
Their comment about the width of the band is also probably not worth looking at. Shure has varied such small details significantly over the decades that they've been producing these things.
Honestly, the only way to be sure is to unscrew the ball and see if the wires break. If they do, or if it is filled with sawdust and weights half what an SM58 should weigh, it's fake. Weigh it with a postal scale. It should weigh about 298 grams (10.5 oz). If it is way off from that, it is probably fake. If it passes those tests, it is probably real. If it has no switch, it is almost definitely real.
