Are Expensive Microphones Worth The Price?

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- Two legendary microphones, but which one is the right one for you? Will the SM7B be the one that you choose or will you elect the Electro-Voice RE20 for your voice? (logo_final_final_v2.mp4) And today, I'm going to compare these two iconic or "mi-conic" microphones to help you decide which one you might want to get. Now, they share a lot of similarities, but there are also a lot of differences. They are both dynamic cardioid microphones. You're not listening to either of them right now, you're listening to the Rode VideoMic NTG, which is mounted overhead, just out of frame. And we're going to switch to these in just a moment. So, as I mentioned, these are both dynamic microphones, and what that means is that they're pretty good at rejecting environmental noise and pretty good at isolating just the sound that's sort of around the microphone. It's that cardioid pickup pattern so mostly stuff that's in front of the microphone, a little bit behind the microphone, not so much on the sides, not so much in the distance. These do work better if they're positioned close to you. But as dynamic microphones, they do tend to be a little bit quiet. The SM7B, specifically, is known for being a very, very quiet microphone, which means that it does usually benefit from having some kind of inline signal booster instead of just running it directly into your mixer or your interface. So if you've heard or seen these microphones in somebody else's set up and you liked it and you want it in your setup, chances are to make it sound as good as you want it to sound, you're going to need some kind of booster. And so let's do a quick comparison without the booster. And then we'll dive into more of the details. I'm going to connect the SM7B first. It's running into the RODECaster Pro with NOFX, no processing. The RODECaster is just acting as an interface right now. It's not coloring the sound of the microphone at all. The gain on the RODECaster is set to 35 decibels and the channel's fader is basically maxed out all the way at the top. You're listening to the VideoMic NTG, and now you're listening to the Shure SM7B directly into the RODECaster Pro with no Cloudlifter or booster or anything like that. This is just the SM7B naturally. And I know that this does not sound as good as this microphone can sound, but this is how it sounds without a Cloudlifter. We'll do the exact same thing with the RE20. So now, without changing any settings, all that I've done is plugged this cable into the RE20. Now, you can hear this microphone without a Cloudlifter. There's definitely a difference in tone, in microphone tone, but you can also hear it is a little bit louder, so the SM7B is quieter than the RE20. But it does have a design that includes a built-in pop filter or windscreen, I should say, which helps prevent those plosives. Peter Piper pitched a podcast. You can definitely still do it if you want, but if you speak across the microphone, even if you're close to it, it's still going to sound pretty good. And what you might also notice is that there's not really much of a proximity effect. You can hear more of the room and the room reverb if I get far away from the microphone. If I get close to the microphone that disappears, but my voice kind of stays the same. The SM7B is pretty well known for its proximity effect, so if I get away from the microphone, it's not going to sound good, but if I get really close to it, then it starts to like boost all those low ends and sound really, really rich. (like a decadent chocolate cake) Some people like that and some people don't. It can definitely be something that's tough to deal with if you're moving around a lot and then the tone is totally changing, but some people love to be right up on the microphone and having that like really broadcasty sound. But in order to really give you the best representation of how these microphones sound, I'm going to plug them into the Cloudlifter CL-2, so they're both going to be running through the exact same booster and they're both going to have the exact same settings in the RODECaster Pro. And while the Cloudlifter is not necessarily my favorite signal booster, I do like it because it doesn't really color the sound at all, so you're gonna hear an accurate representation of the mic. So this is the SM7B without a Cloudlifter. And this is the SM7B running through the Cloudlifter. And this is the RE20 without a Cloudlifter. And this is the RE20 running through the Cloudlifter. I was able to reduce the gain to 27 decibels instead of 35. And I was able to lower the faders on each channel to write about the unity mark, which is just above the halfway point on the RODEcaster Pro so I'm not cranking everything and maxing it out as much as possible. Now, I think you're starting to hear the microphone sound the way that they're really intended to, and probably the way that you would want them to, if you were to buy either one of these. So again, this is the RE20 and this is the Shure SM7B. I'm certainly sure that you can hear a difference between both of these microphones, but it doesn't necessarily mean that one is objectively better than the other. You just kind of want to think about which tone that you like. You can kind of use my voice as a baseline example and how it might compare to your voice or whatever use you're planning to use the microphones are. But this is the Shure and this is the RE20. They both sound pretty awesome. So what I'm going to do right now is use each microphone to tell you about each microphone. So this is the Shure SM7B, which was originally released in 1973. Would you believe it? And it's been basically the same ever since, although it was refreshed in 2001 with some modifications to become the SM7B that we know today. Over the past few years, it's become pretty ubiquitous for podcasting and streaming, but it's also a great microphone for music, and you can even use it as an instrument microphone for amplifiers, drums, and that sort of thing. It's incredibly versatile and its frequency response chart looks like this. (WOW!) The manufacturer's suggested retail price or MSRP for the SM7B is $399, so we can just call it a $400 microphone. And in this corner, we've got the Electro-Voice RE20, originally released in 1969. That's right, the RE20 is actually older than the Shure. But it's also a dynamic broadcast microphone and its frequency response chart looks like this. (🤯) And it's also an incredibly versatile microphone that's not only great for voice, but also for instruments and music as well. And the MSRP for RE20 is $449 so it is a little bit more expensive than the SM7B. And most notably for me, the Electro-Voice RE20 was the microphone used by Kelsey Grammer for 11 seasons on the TV show "Frasier". So that's just about the best endorsement I could think of. And now we're back on the Rode VideoMic NTG just because, since these microphones do share a lot of similar specifications, but they are so different, I thought that this would be a good time to do some "scientific testing." So what I have devised is, up until this point in human history, the most accurate measuring comparison device for two microphones. This is what's known as the "Audio Uncertainty Cube." And when I press this button and it activates, in here is where I can place a microphone and you won't be able to tell what it is... ...because it is a box that covers up the microphone. So I've now placed a microphone into this device. And right now, you're listening to the VideoMic NTG. And now, you're listening to the mystery microphone. Which microphone is this microphone? Could it be the SM7B or are you are really sure that it's the RE20? But while I'm using this first microphone, it's a good time to tell you about the sponsor of today's video: Cardboard Boxes. "Boxes, sometimes you need to put stuff in them." (use promo code "BAG" for 82% off) And again, NOFX, no processing, nothing happening in this microphone here. And now, let's activate the Mystery Device (I forgot the actual name) to go to our second microphone. All right, now we're on the second mystery microphone. How does this one sound? How does it compare to the other one? Do you have any idea which one this might be? Is it the Shure? Is it the Electro-Voice? I don't know. Actually, I totally know. And while I'm using this microphone, I can tell you about this video's other sponsor: Cut-Up Boxes. "Cut-up boxes, because sometimes you need a box to do other stuff too." (use promo code "WHY?!" for 2% off ) Now that we're wrapping up this uncertainty experiment, let's see if you could guess which microphone is which. If you said that the second microphone was the SM7B, you would shure b wrong, because it is the Electro-Voice RE20. And that means based on the process of elimination, the first microphone was the Shure SM7B. Thus, concluding our very scientific experiment. So now that we've heard some of the differences in sound quality between these microphones, let's talk about some of the design and feature differences, because there are quite a few things that set them apart. The SM7B is probably a pretty familiar-looking microphone where you've got the XLR mount on the bottom here, right where it mounts onto either a mic stand. These are just Samson tabletop mic stands. I found them on Amazon. (I think the model number is MD5) They're awesome. And it also has a really nice built-in shock mount, because if you notice, I'm moving the microphone around and none of that sound is really being picked up. If I tap on the mic stand and do this, you can kind of hear it. But for the most part, I mean, you're not hearing anything like this. So that's a great thing, whether this is mounted on a stand or on a boom arm. And the SM7B does have some basic controls on the back to adjust sort of the frequency response. This is now with the low, the lows reduced a little bit. And this is with the highs increased a little bit, so now I have much more of kind of that broadcast-like compressed sound, even though I'm just doing that from directly within the microphone. Basically on the back, when you adjust the lows and the highs up or down, you kind of then adjust this little wave form diagram here. And the way it is right now is kind of neutral. This is how it's gonna be right out of the box when you get it, so that's where I'm going to leave it for the rest of this video. So one of my favorite things about the SM7B is no matter what your voice is like, you can probably find some sort of setting in here that's gonna make it sound pretty good. If I remove the windscreen from the SM7B, then you kind of see the capsules down here and there's this metal grill around it, which does help in itself act like a windscreen, so it's not very susceptible to plosives, especially once you have something on it then puh, puh, puh Peter Piper pitched a podcast. It's very easy to be close to this microphone without having a ton of plosive sounds. And it does also come with a much bigger windscreen that you can put on here. And then no matter what, Peter Piper pitched a podcast, no matter how hard you try to make a plosive pop, it just won't do it with this giant windscreen on. However, one of my favorite things is to get these colored SM7B windscreens from reporterstore.com. As I mentioned previously, I am not associated with reportestore.com in any way. I don't have affiliate links or anything. (But I'd like one 😉) I've just bought a bunch of windscreens from them and they're great. It doesn't have the plastic locking ring that the original has, but it's otherwise the same quality. And it just slides right on the microphone. Now, I've got a really nice windscreen directly on the SM7B. So this is the reporterstore.com windscreen. And this is the original windscreen. So you can see the sound quality is not really affected because they're pretty much the same. This one might be slightly thicker. Now, moving on over to the RE20, there are quite a few differences. Obviously, the sound is different. The microphone is a little more expensive and as I'm moving it around on the stand, you probably notice a lot more handling noise than the SM7B. It really does tend to pick up a lot. When you get the microphone, it comes in this nice case. The SM7B doesn't come in a case or anything. And it comes with this little microphone mount here, but it's not really a shock mount. It's just sort of a mic mount. It doesn't come with a windscreen or a pop filter, but it does have that built-in, you know, Peter Piper pitched a podcast. There's still some plosives there, but they're pretty well reduced, and I'm quite close to the microphone right now. I move this one out of the way, you can see how close I'm speaking to the RE20 and it's just slightly off axis right here. This is the RE20-Black. They started coming out with some new variations. The only difference between this one and the original RE20 is that it is black. (Shocking, right?) Now, as I mentioned earlier, this microphone is not super prone to the proximity effect. It has what Electro-Voice calls "Variable-D Technology," which is like variable dynamic response technology. So even if I move a little bit away from it or a little bit closer to it, there's certain things that are impossible not to change, like how much of the room reverb is getting picked up. But the actual tone of the sound shouldn't change that much. If I go on the side of the microphone, you can hear it starting to reject it if I go on this side. If I go behind it, it sounds weird. But if I'm basically near the front of the microphone, no matter kind of where I'm going, it holds up pretty well. And so the Shure SM7B, if I go off to the side, it stops picking up as clearly. If I go off to the side, these have basically the exact same pickup pattern. Now, the one control that the RE20 does have is a little switch right here, which is the bass rolloff switch, and so this is gonna reduce some of the bass frequencies. This is without that being activated. And now, this is with the bass rolloff being turned on. You probably heard a lot of the low end seem to sort of disappear right now. The reason you would want to use that is if you're somebody who just has a super deep voice and you don't want to emphasize that too much, if you're recording in a space that has low rumbling sound, maybe you have wind noise or an air conditioner or something, or if you're recording deep bass instruments, like a bass or a bass drum, or some sort of musical device that has a low frequency, and you don't want to just have those bass frequencies overloaded, you can turn off the bass. But generally speaking for spoken word, you would want to leave that turned off so you get the full richness of the microphone. Now, I do happen to have this, which is the Electro-Voice 309A shock mount. And this is shockingly massive, but it's a really good shock mount. So this is the handling noise with the RE20, just on a mic stand. And this is almost comically huge, but now you can hear the difference in how much the handling noise has been reduced with this giant shock mount. I'm really shaking it and moving around, and the microphone's moving, but it's not really picking up much of that sound. So this can be really helpful. I think this is kind of insane looking, but I also kind of love it. So if you want to know my take on this, I think these are both excellent microphones. What I love is that they both have very, very different sound profiles. They do not sound similar, but they're both extremely high quality so you can't go wrong with either one. It just comes down to which sound you like best and which one you think is gonna work best for you. There's also simple stuff, like the SM7B coming with the built-in yoke, makes it really easy mount in a studio. It's a little smaller, a little more compact. I haven't made a video about this microphone yet, but this is the Shure MV7X. It's the XLR-only version of the MV7, and it retails for under $200. Sometimes you can even find it as low as $150. And it's quite similar to the SM7B. Here's the MV7X. And here's the SM7B. It's not exactly the same, but it's also not super-duper different, and it is less than half the price of the SM7B. That being said, both of these are very versatile microphones. If you do really want one of these, don't buy a bunch of 1 and $200 microphones trying to make up for it. Like, just invest the money in the microphone that you really want. But I think that both of these microphones do sound pretty darn good. And speaking of things that are pretty darn good, thank you to everyone who helped support my channel through Patreon and YouTube channel memberships. I greatly appreciate that as always. And now this RE20. If this hasn't helped you make up your mind, I do have an entire playlist of microphone reviews and comparisons that will hopefully guide you to the microphone that's right for you. (Thanks for sticking around all the way to the end!)
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Channel: Tom Buck
Views: 4,939
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: shure sm7b, electro voice re20, re20, sm7b, sm7b vs re20, best podcasting mic, best streaming mic, shure sm7b review, electro voice re20 review, shure vs electrovoice, shure podcasting mic, podcast microphone, streaming microphone, xls microphone, best microphone, shure sm7b setup for streaming, re20 shock mount, re20 mic, re20 setup, re20 microphone, re20 vs sm7b
Id: gVbahvmukkk
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)
Published: Thu Dec 16 2021
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