Folkcafe
Well-known member
"Hive Mind" is an interesting description. More so "POS" for a microphone that was introduced in 1966 and that has probably outsold any similar mic by huge ratios. So, I get that you don't like it. So not trying to convince you otherwise, just pointing out a common selection bias.I find this a hive mind mentality than anything. Especially when I let an artist taste test different mics on stage and most notice how much of a POS they truly are, so most end up with something not a SM58 by their choice.
As a percentage of the population, those that can hear and discern qualitive differences in audio is a fairly small number. I witnessed this some years back first hand. One of my early jobs was working for a music store that sold car and home audio. Everything from affordable to pretty expensive brands like Luxman. I learned a lot about how few people could tell the difference between a speaker costing $100 to one well over $1000. I did a lot of blind A/B testing. General public is not impressive in this regard.
Another thing I learned also makes me understand a long trend in music production. We sold a lot of different speakers including Japanese brands like Pioneer and Kenwood. When A/B tested against higher end brands, these would often get picked by most customers and it kind of made me scratch my head a bit. What these brands did was make these speakers brighter. In a A/B comparison, brighter tends to win out in such a short audition test.
We all have our biases and yours tends to lean towards brighter. The microphones you list as superior are all brighter than the 58. The Telefunken is a really bright mic. From 1966 and the introduction of the 58 to today, modern music has certainly moved to loud and bright. I suppose if what you produce is modern music (don't like to presume based on username but drtechno kind of implies) you are going to lean in a modern direction. Is this part of your bias? Are you simply like the masses and just pick brighter?