Something I didn't know about Shure SM57 Microphones - and it's a shock.

R

rob aylestone

Moderator
I needed a new SM57, as my attempt to repair a dead was was less than brilliant, so I figured what I'd do was order a new one from a real Shure dealer, but then eacrjh around for a fake, but as close a one as I could find. So correct box, labels, stickers, mic clip, instructions and appearance.

In the videos I have done, many copies had problems. No transformers, no rotating grill ring, high or low output level, shrill tone, even spelling mistakes. I found one for £45, that looked like the one that had just arrived. The fake box declared "Made in Mexico" hardly unusual fo a Chinese product, but the REAL Shure label gave me a shock. "Made in ......... CHINA!!!"

yes - Shure are now having their mics made in China. The more expensive fake turned out to be a very good one, and the zip up bag was the nice Shure softer plastic and the grill slots were not the usual thicker and chunkier ones, but identical to the Shure.

I am wondering if the genuine ones, especially 'B' grade could be diverted away from Shure, and be sold? after all, Thomann in Germany have sold their MB75 which is a very good copy for quite a few years now.

The only real differences seem to be in weight. 270g for the real and the copy 245g - I've checked all my 57s and all the old tatty ones are heavy. The other issue is the printing - little things. Some white printing when it should be green, no bold text sometimes, and trouble with alignment. In addition, the little symbols above some characters are missing in the Portuguese text.

Sound on the fake was a little different, but not a big difference to be fair. Certainly not that common thing and cutting sound some very cheap one have. It's still uploading but will be up soon. Shure made in China - wow!

 
I really didn't know they made them in China - I love their response to questions.

Question
Are the same quality and reliability standards used for each factory? (USA, Mexico and China)
Answer
Absolutely.

In fairness they can't say anything else, but the old notion that Chinese = rubbishjust isn't true any more.

That said, I just bought a mic on ebay, from a UK seller, with a UK name, and the rubber parts have turned into a white mush, instead of black, as in the photo. When I sent the seller a message, it goes to Ebay.hk, so not even a UK seller. Everything now is sort of disguised.
 
Geography has nothing to do with quality, if you use the same equipment to manufacture something. I used materials from a Chinese plant that was built by the Germans years ago. They could make products every bit as good as the original, occasionally better. We owned the plant so there wasn't any issue with formulations or specs. When a problem cropped up, they were just as dedicated in finding the solution. I also dealt with a company that had manufacturing in Germany, Canada and Kansas. Of the 3 the Kansas plant was the least favored. When they had an issue, we would bring in either German or Canadian material, at additional cost due to transportation.

The Shure Chinese plant opened in 2005. Shure didn't just go over there and ask somebody to make SM57s. They built the plant. You can bet that a ton of the manufacturing work on parts for the SM are done by machine. Casting the body, molding the plastic, winding the coils. That will all be highly automated. You can bet the plastic used was coming from China already. Same with the wire. The assembly of those parts can be taught to anybody. As long as you adhere to the same specs, you should be able to make the same product.

Since it is a Shure plant, I doubt that they are selling off "seconds" to the counterfeit market. However, one thing that I learned when dealing with some Chinese companies is that there seems to be a culture of learning to make something, then going off and setting up a "backyard" operation, often as a family business. Buy a CNC machine and a winder. Get someone to do castings. Cut a few corners (regulatory/QC/raw material) and undercut the pricing of the original operation.

There was a story a few years ago about a counterfeiter being raided. It wasn't just Shure products.

msretailer.com

Shure, Sennheiser, Yamaha and Harman Take on Alleged Counterfeit Operation

Shure Inc. announced that in October 2018, a police raid on a factory in China manufacturing counterfeit products, Enping Soundpu Electronics Equipment (also doing business as Voxpu Electronics Equipment), took place, with close cooperation and assistance from the Enping Public Security Bureau...
msretailer.com msretailer.com
 
I think eventually there's going to be one place in China where everything in the world is manufactured - I mean everything (food, cars, diapers, salad spinners, etc.). It'll be a small straw shack no bigger than a 10x10 bedroom. Only one very old guy running the whole operation - no employees. It'll be like the western world's Santa Claus at the North Pole, only no elves.
 
Reminds me of a comment that was made when we were trying to automate processes many years ago. The ultimate manufacturing plant will be staffed by a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to make sure the man doesn't touch any of the machinery. 🧝‍♂️ 🐶
 
Serendipity Records said:
True! It's the demographic's commitment to production ethics that affects quality.
Click to expand...
The culture is fundamentally different from the Euro-US culture which is why the "ethics"/counterfeiting question arises. That has nothing to do with the ability to produce quality products.

I would guess that the average Chinese worker will be just as conscientious as the typical US worker (maybe more so these days..!) I have heard cases where a family member was sick, so another person from the family would go to the factory to fill their place.

These day, we have people who will work hard to do a good job. There are others who feel that most jobs are beneath their status. I have a friend who has been do HR for a factory for more than 5 years. She is continually telling me how hard it is to get anyone to work at a job that pays about $22/hr to start. She has people who will go through all the preliminary stuff only to not show up on the first day. Others work a few days and then disappear. She had a few who didn't even bother showing up for the physical (I suspect the drug screening might have something to do with that).

When I was a kid, Made In Japan was another way of saying cheapo crap. That's not the case today. Made in Japan is pretty synonymous with high quality and innovation. Japanese Fenders are sought after instruments. A Japanese Ibanez is a high quality instrument (ask Joe Satriani and Steve Vai). Toyota and Honda forced Ford and Chevy to up their game. Sony and Yamaha make very high grade professional gear. Korea went down the same path. Companies like Samsung, LG, and others are world class.

The problem with China is the government. They can be unpredictable. They control everything, which is why you see Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Vietnam and Philippines as the new sites for manufacturing.
 
I’m very pro Chinese, in fact, my income is based around the regular sales of Chinese radio products. Communications now is often via whatsapp with my two main suppliers. Inevitably, discussions drift, and I get messages like “sorry, I was off work yesterday, my little boy was Ill” or they booked leave to go into hospital. I get videos of factory floor mopping when they had a typhoon. I see pretty high Tec and very normal activities. Sitting round office tables with boring PowerPoints, very normal. if I want a microphone for a specific brand radio, let’s say Kenwood, they give me two prices one for genuine and one for near genuine. For fun, I’ve bought both, and cannot tell which is which. My contact explained that one is made in the approved factory, for Kenwood, but over the amount Kenwood buy. The factory then sell the over produced items, complete. The others are the parts supplied to the approved factory, assembled elsewhere. basically, bags of bits put together in the non approved factory, but the same bits. I do one radio that is made the same way, apart from as the radio is sold by the name brand as made in Japan. the approved factory use one chip that is brought into China from Japan. The self assembly approach fails, because they don’t have that chip, so they fit their own. It means the official programming software doesn’t work. Overruns are less common. I get a fifty pound difference in price. Both items carry the anti counterfeit 3d holographic sticker. The manufacturer in Japan programmes the radios on import, and that is enough, with the Japanese chip to say made in Japan, but they cannot make too much fuss about the origin and the Chinese sales, when they rely on China too!

China just do what the non-Chinese ask for. I would suspect real 57s are going out the door to others. There is now a new Chinese digital mixer brand that appear to have identical knobs, faders and screen contents to X32 Behringers. Get the bits, put them in a new box.
 
And the OEM's ....lets toss in ALL the big names who sent their manufacturing to China and trained them how to build their widget ...
the Chineese were taught by the OEM on how to manufacture the product and then how to source the parts and drawings and tech specs....and boom! they can now build to spec the same products. I dont put any negative on China really ...or Korea or Africa or the ROBOTS .lol
the machines dont care where they are plugged in.....lol

Theres maybe a romantic glow of golden days for some who want Neumann to be Germany made and Shure to be USA and AKG Austria....and SONY Japan....and Rupert Neve to have some magic pixie dust sound....

The Shure KSM line was the last USA holdout, but RIP ....its gone to China...who cares? why care? I dont know either.
Anyway.....Shure is no longer a US company, imo.
 

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I consider myself a newbie in all this timeline of gear.
I wasnt around when the U47 was discontinued for example.
The tube discontinued is now like a rare gold artifact to gearheads. U67 then turned into a U87 then the modern U87ai.

Brand names..
Shure was in my mind a working man priced, professionally approved, tool in this emotion driven, creative vibe world of music recording and brutal abused live gear.
Shure allowed garage bands to have the same gear which is a big deal. SM58, SM57...name brand and yeah SM7b etc...
The KSM never became a Neumann threat, the pro's seem to be ok with the Shures, but there was never the Beatles or huge names we simulate in gear with the KSM27,32,44..42. as for the SM57, 58 they just work and lasted due to prices and quality even though hundreds others sound as good or better.

I asked Shure recently about the nomenclature, KSM was Kondensor Studio Microphone, but I asked what do the numbers mean , is it capsule size or part number?
and the reply was "nothing...there is absolutely no meaning". 32,44,27.?.just gibberish numbers per this Shure person.

The Shure dynamics were cheap priced and always a vibe of , "pro and tough" and a fuh-get-bout it....tool.
The KSM series was like a "studio" mic from the same quality brand name and all that....and used KSM were often 60% or more off new prices and used "studio" mics are often excellent condition. Due to counterfeits and low prices I would get the MADE IN USA KSM mics for my own little mic locker and trades, and used them as some standard.

Not really a China thing, but my experience in manufacturing is the life of a product often goes through stages, the availability of parts no longer available so they force a new transformer in or a new tube....but theres the ugly side where the "bean counters" will cut away materials and can ruin a product or name brand.

I spent years at a big Texas company sending materials to Asia as the US factory death was in motion. The china and taiwan plants still slapped a Texas logo on the chips..lol
We, large group,. trained them and did a small percentage of QC in the US to ensure they were not cheating the QC (which happened a few times...)

So I get SHURE offshoring it all....theres no labor laws and no environmental fines no lawsuits by the workers, theres no disability and diversified costs, the US corp gets bent over a lot ...and always a UNion threat to raise employee wages 54%.... so the Execs ship it over seas...and give themselves a 5400% raise...is what I saw.

ADD: Amazon lists the KSM44 as Mexico built ....so one site says China the other Mexico?
 

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rob aylestone said:
I'd missed this totally - I was very surprised to see it on the box.
Click to expand...
Ive spent a bit of time trying to decipher or find which Shures are made where , a list seems elusive.
If you find one Im curious. Im not even exactly sure when they moved them all out. (im more interested in KSM series)

As for sound, I did a comparison of SM81 for USA and Mexico and my ears couldnt hear a difference. ...and I recall being really impressed with the PG81 for super cheap used.

For a SM57 seems Mexico was a long long time ago, right?
 
perhaps an alternate view, the 57 is a great mic, but i converted over 10 years ago to either senn 609 or 906. mainly because the placement with the 57 for me was always so so finicky on guitar cabs, and the 609 is not in my experience. i can't comment on the origin of the mics here, counterfeits and such, but i will say i am sure i was using a "real" 57 at that time, early 90's.
 
This is not entirely on topic - but "57" related content.

I can't remember if I shared this here or on another forum. But a few years ago I decided I wanted to do a sonic uniformity test of my two SM57's. The two mics had been purchased sometime in the mid to late 90's approx a year apart. Both were used - but in like new condition when I bought them. I'd been doing a bunch of gtr cabinet recording at the time (more recently, about 2020) and wanted to make sure that if there was even a slight difference between the two - that I was using the one that I felt was best for the circumstances. So I did the most controlled experiment that I could come up with.... testing voice, acoustic and electric guitar, and different percussive hits delivered from my Roland R70. Leaving out the rest of the details - I concluded that to the best of my ability to find a sonic difference between the two - I couldn't. They performed absolutely identically as far as I could tell.

That is all.:-)
 
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CoolCat said:
Ive spent a bit of time trying to decipher or find which Shures are made where , a list seems elusive.
If you find one Im curious. Im not even exactly sure when they moved them all out. (im more interested in KSM series)

As for sound, I did a comparison of SM81 for USA and Mexico and my ears couldnt hear a difference. ...and I recall being really impressed with the PG81 for super cheap used.

For a SM57 seems Mexico was a long long time ago, right?
Click to expand...
I lurk waaaay more than I post. Hello all! Having seen this thread and just purchased an sm57 from B&H in NYC USA a couple of months ago, it never occurred to check country of origin. I checked it out (I have plenty of other mics made in China). It's not marked on the mic itself, but the Shure packaging box it came in says "Made In Mexico".
And now, back to my lurking status. Good day all!
 
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