I have two Electro-Voice PL76 microphones which I bought in the late 1970's.
The original batteries I bought were mercury batteries which likely aren't even made anymore due to the waste-hazard associated with mercury.
I am glad to learn the ones you found are alkaline; indeed I am glad to learn where to find batteries for the PL76's!
About the microphones: The PL76 mics are Electro-Voice's answer to the
Shure SM58 vocal mic. The PL76 is a much better mic, however, in my opinion, with an extended frequency range: the
Shure SM58's go from 50Hz-15kHz, whereas the Electro-Voice PL76's go from 50Hz-18kHz. This is significantly higher, bringing out more clarity in the music source. In addition, the EV is known to give a more even response across the entire frequency range, creating more lattitude in EQ-ing. I have found that I actually need to turn the treble knob down to compensate for the extra crispness from the PL76's!
The PL76 also makes a great live accoustic guitar/instument mic, due to the extra high end. Just experiment with different positioning in front of the guitar to find the sweet spot. On my accoustic, the best mic position is next to the high E string, just at the bottom of, and slightly behind the bridge, away from the sound hole toward the soundboard, about an inch or so. It takes a little getting used to this placement, though. (I find miking the sound hole directly to be too boomy sounding, although it feels more comfortable, since the mic is more visible there, right in front of you.) You can naturally mic a straight accoustic guitar but you can also mic an accoustic-electric guitar in addition to using the guitar's own pickup: just plug the mic into one mixer channel and the guitar pickup into another channel. This gives you two sound sources for the same instrument. Then you can blend them together as desired (using the separate channel volume controls) for an outstanding guitar sound!
Sorry, I don't know anything about the other mics you mentioned. You can search the Internet, however, for "Electro-Voice DS35" or "Electro-Voice PL76" and find the actual engineering data sheets for both of them, as well as other sites with information about them. Unfortunately, however, I was unable to post the URLs for the sites here.