Sm57

R

Ridickolas

New member
just got an sm57 for £35 ($70) off amazon, should be here by thur-fri. looking forward to playing with it - apparently it can do everything lol.
 
Nice. I just nabbed a new factory sealed one off of Ebay for $70 Cnd, although I have to pay shipping on top of that. Still works out about $15 bucks cheaper than the local store.

I also noticed a number of SM7b's on Ebay for what appears to be pretty good deals. As low as $290 CND brand new in some cases.

Long and McQuade wants $415.00 CND :(
 
must be weird with the canadian and us dollar flipped - a bunch of things still marked higher in canadian dollars because the relationship was fixed for so long. Us yankees are getting poorer everyday (and our stuff is getting cheaper for everyone else).

The 57 is very useful and durable. Wait for awhile and get another one. Pretty soon they'll be like 20 quid, but the US price won't have changed at all - sigh.
 
Me too. The place I'm buying from is a Canadian Powerseller and claims to be a Shure dealer. The box shot they have posted looks legit and the price isn't spectacular so I'm confident it's all good, but we'll see when it gets here.
 
Question?

Hey,

From what I can see from other topics and stuff, the only main difference between the SM57 and SM58, aside from the vocal-optimised high end response on the 58, is the grilles on the top, and the fact that the 58 has a wind shield and a larger bulb ontop.

So if that's true, surely that means if you take the bulb off a 58, it comes very similar to a 57. Am I right?
Obviously this would leave the mic unprotected - does anyone know if they have the same fixings, so if I was to get a 57 grille could I screw it onto a 58?

Cheers,

Andy
 
well yeah, take the bulb off a 58, it IS a 57. BUT, you cant get a 57 grille and put it on a 58 or vice versa due to slightly different body sizes
 
Taking the windscreen off of an SM58 does NOT create an SM57. They are different mics. The electronics are voiced to do different things, they have different capsules(Yeah check it out on the pdf on Shures website!!) they have similar yet different polar patterns....I agree they are similar and they share a mutual parentage, but they are not the same mic.


They're not even the same from mic to mic!


I have owned as many as 25 of them at a time.
 
i didnt mean it like THAT. obviously they will still be a bit different.. they have diff. capsules? how do u know shure are just not saying that - think - its a great way for them to get people to go out n buy a 58 and 57 thinking they will be very different..
 
Ridickolas said:
i didnt mean it like THAT. obviously they will still be a bit different.. they have diff. capsules? how do u know shure are just not saying that - think - its a great way for them to get people to go out n buy a 58 and 57 thinking they will be very different..
Click to expand...


There are some quality companys still out there in the world. I have buying and using Shure Bros. products since the 60's. They have never (to my knowledge) offered something in their lines that did not do EXACTLY WHAT THEY CLAIMED IT TO DO........and, they have never claimed their products sounded 'similar' or 'a lot like' or 'in the spirit of ' any other product out there new or old.

AND I, much like Shure, dont believe in lying about something just to make another buck.


Wouldnt be ethical now would it................
 
It's times like this I miss BlueBear :(

"Electronics are voiced"? You mean the transformers? SM57/58 ain't got any electronics.
 
sorry...the 'capsules' are wound differently as are the ummm...transformers.


Last time I checked transformers had something to do with electricity....but since we're splitting hairs..............
 
antichef said:
must be weird with the canadian and us dollar flipped - a bunch of things still marked higher in canadian dollars because the relationship was fixed for so long. Us yankees are getting poorer everyday (and our stuff is getting cheaper for everyone else).

The 57 is very useful and durable. Wait for awhile and get another one. Pretty soon they'll be like 20 quid, but the US price won't have changed at all - sigh.
Click to expand...

Just buy stuff from the states in US dollars, and you'll save a bundle. =D Ebay is good as well. Most banks in Canada have something in the way of a US dollar account. It's still cheaper than buying the inflated Canadian price with the dollar the way it is, you're being majorly ripped off.
 
oh yah, shure is always the most suprisingly good mic company. cheap products that run circles around everything else in their price range (and in some cases bigger price ranges) Dunno how they do it.
 
cavedog101 said:
sorry...the 'capsules' are wound differently as are the ummm...transformers.


Last time I checked transformers had something to do with electricity....but since we're splitting hairs..............
Click to expand...

Yes, technically anything that affects the flow of electrons is electronics, but usually when people talk about mic electronics, they are talking about active circuits . . .

Anyway, there are many, many people who will insist the 57/58 capsules and transformers are identical, and the difference in response is created entirely by the ball. BlueBear would practically blow a gasket when anyone suggested otherwise. It was humorous.

I don't particularly care enough to measure it myself, and the only Unidyne capsule I have left is a 55SH (which also looks suspiciously identical to the 57/58 capsule, but is mounted differently). But I will say I would challenge anyone to distinguish between a ball-less 58 and a 57 in a blind test.

Plus, y'know, you have things like this:

http://shure.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/s...2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9c201OCBzbTU3&p_li=&p_topview=1

http://shure.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/s...2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9c201OCBzbTU3&p_li=&p_topview=1

http://shure.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/s...2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9c201OCBzbTU3&p_li=&p_topview=1

Just sayin' ;)

They get a little indecisive here; but they could simply be referring to the different mount:

http://shure.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/s...2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9c201OCBzbTU3&p_li=&p_topview=1

I don't see where they talk about the transformer, but I'd be surprised if it was different.
 
My source is from the factory itself, which I am not at liberty to reveal nor discuss at length as they are rather old-fashioned about these things. Of course they sound very similar as I indicated originally they have a common parentage as does that 55SH capsule. All of the PE series from the 60's and 70's share this same lineage. They are ALL going to sound similar in a blind test and as I have already said, from mic to mic there are differences as well as similarities. I have personally owned 58's that sounded exactly like any number of 57's I have owned and visa-versa. Age, wear,environment, all effect the performance of a mic. But you already knew that...Hell, if you hold a 57 at a 90 degree angle from your mouth and sing across the top of it, it sounds remarkably like most of the rip-off clones out there for sale....

and Yes, in thirty years of recording and audio production I tend to slur over normal references . Thanks for correcting me.....I know I feel so much better now. I hope it has helped you as much as me.
 
Shure can do whatever different they want to the capsules, but if it ends up sounding the same sans-ball, it doesn't matter. If they are really voiced to do different things . . . they failed. Didn't you state there is more mic to mic variation than the difference between the 57 and 58?

And since the Shure party line on the technical FAQ of their website indicates they are the same, it's a marketing failure too. Although maybe the marketing guys don't read the technical FAQ . . . most marketing guys probably can't read :p

We used to have a couple Shure employees post here, but they don't seem to be around anymore . . . it's all good if you have an unverified, undisclosed source BUT you claimed a .pdf on the Shure website said the capsules were different, and you also say the transformers are different. So you shouldn't need to appeal to an anonymous source.

Heck, if you still have a bunch of them, measure the DCR between pins 2 and 3 on a bunch of them. If there is a consistently different result, you have proven your case. If there is not, you may still be correct. You'd have nothing to lose!

Just for grins . . . DCR on my 55SH is 262 ohms :)
 
Hey, I just noticed in the datasheets that the rated output impedance of the 57/58 is 10 ohms different. So the transformers are somewhat different, presumably! No need to measure! :)
 
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