Rob mentions "filling holes" what I started doing after years of just having random enjoyment trying random gear out.
I had a microphone book talking tech nerd stuff but never read it really. Eventually my dim light bulb went off, in specs and engineers designing for different applications!
The Marketing guys confuse things sometimes say all mics do everything great!! but the sensitivity is kind of linear logic to ears, 28mv/pa picks up everything and a 1.2mv/pa seems like its broken to many. Patterns and all that is ok too, but we dont live in a anechoic perfect room chamber so specs and things are a basic graph to help but not the whole picture.
im just rffing, but going into sensitive mics then the room starts showing its ugliness, a lot of Neumann 87ai are sold used because its not a good bad-room mic as the youtube said. The old 87 were almost half the sensitivity, one guy thought it was broken...less output.
Ive found mics around 14mv/pa is a good spec/middle sensitivity for a interface preamp and for my home average normal room/house.
It still amazes me a 28mv/pa mic can pickup things outside!!, the attic fan motor!! and the computer fan!! that is not heard with my ears when the mic/headphones are off. faf....
My KSM44 are set to 15db pad, not 28mv/pa with the low freq cut. Dynamics work well here, but to get some crispy polish clarity sparkle LDC, sensitivity goes upward.
I still find it all interesting still but in hindsight I never gave enough effort in the room. Getting a decent room, cleaned up, to some decent level is worth it...all goes hand in hand to the mics and patterns, and then again, a lot of stuff is close mic'd.
SM81 6mv/pa....KSM184 15mv/pa....sm57 1.5mv/pa...AKG451 9mv/pa...MXL 603 10mv/pa ..PG81 (not PGA) is 4mv/pa
ok time for another cup of coffee....