CAUTION: Fake Shure SM7Bs on the rise! What’s the deal??? - (How to spot a fake)

can you tell a difference between these two microphones well neither can I and that's the point I want to talk about in this video fake sm7bs how they compare to the real ones in terms of sound and build quality and I'll also show you how you might spot a fake hey Julian Krauss here and I absolutely despise ripping of companies with fake products and stealing intellectual property and when I saw this convincing fake sm7b I was concerned that some people might mistake this for the real one for only one third of the cost of a real sm7b some people might also be tempted to buy a fake sm7b and that's why I was curious how close it gets to the real deal so I took one for the team and bought a fake sm7b let's check it out and see how it Compares by the way Frakes are not unique to the sm7p there are many other mics that are being plagiarized but the high popularity of the microphone and the higher price make it a prime candidate for a fake microphone producer before we're jumping into the audio comparison let's quickly have a look at the construction and see if there are any obvious differences between the fake and the realism7b as mentioned from afar they are virtually impossible to distinguish the shape is pretty much identical and the paint also matches very closely even the weight is not too different being in all metal build the sm7b is quite a heavy microphone and if yours is considerably lighter then that might be the first indication that it is a fake mic some details are surprisingly close like for example the same use of brass washers on the Yoke but there are some differences for example the pop filter the real one is a bit fuzzier and has slightly bigger pores compared to the fake one although that's probably not something you can notice when you don't have a direct comparison on the real one the XLR connector has a slightly more rounded top whereas on the fake one it is a bit more squarish the seals of the XLR cable can easily be pulled out on the fake sm7b but that's not possible on the real one the sticker surrounding the mic collar goes all the way around on the fake sm7b compared to my real one where it is only on one side and on the back the printing of the logo is much more clear on the real one especially the small trademark logo that said I also noticed that there are small differences even in real sm7ps simply depending on when and where they have been manufactured mine is about four and a half years old now and it seems that on newer microphones the sticker actually now goes all the way around the microphone and the issue logo on the back doesn't even have a trademark logo anymore these small inconsistencies make it quite a bit harder to distinguish real and fake sm7bs reliably a few more minor things I noticed the Yoke does not lock in place as tightly on the fake sm7b even with all the screws torqued down you can still move it relatively easily and the XLR Port seems slightly out of spec as it is incredibly hard to push in the XLR plug and don't even ask me how I got it unplugged again okay I didn't need to saw but it was a real pain to get the cable unplugged the biggest difference though is visible when you remove the pop filter you can see that the mic capsule on the fake sm7b sits quite a bit more forward on the real sm7b the capture sits slightly behind the middle of the metal cage and on the fake one slightly in front of the middle again if there are one or two minor things different on your sm7b then I probably wouldn't be directly alarmed there are some differences in real sm7 piece as well but if you see things like a more forward-sitting mic capsule fuzzibly printed sure logos easily removable cable SEALS or any major deviations from the original then there's a pretty good chance that it might be a fake I know you've all waited for this the audio comparison so without further Ado I'll play you an audio sample which I simultaneously recorded with both microphones and I will switch between the two so Geo can hear the difference [Music] [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Music] I think the difference is quite obvious the sound of the fake is generally thinner and it also lacks the sparkle that the sm7b has in the higher end which results in a more mid-focused sound and that's exactly what we see in the measurements as well here you can see the difference between the frequency response of both microphones the roll-off in the low frequency area clearly shows that the fake microphone has considerably less bass than the sm7b in the mid-range the frequency response is actually not too different but when we have a look at the higher frequencies the fake mic has noticeably less output than the sm7b that also explains the missing Sparkle compared to the real sm7b overall the sound of the fake mic is quite different and definitely does not sound like the real deal on the original sm7b you can also find two switches which shape the sound of the microphone with a high percent of high frequency boost filter the fake mic of course also has these functions and they also work as intended although again you can see that the filters do not match match the original microphone the high pass filter sets in a bit earlier on the fake microphone and the HF boost is actually 2 DB more than the real sm7b at first glance the functions work as on the real mic but if you look or better listen more closely they are slightly different again and simply do not match the original implementation let's State the obvious here in terms of look and feel the fake sm7b is pretty damn close to the real deal and at first glance it would absolutely pass as a genuine sure microphone actually even with a closer look you might mistake the microphone for a proper sm7b and the whole packaging that it comes in makes it even more convincing but that's also the problem here if somebody sold you this microphone and you would have paid the full price for a real sm7b you might be in Far bad surprise so make sure to only buy the sm7b from a reputable dealer to be certain that it is a genuine microphone or at least look closely at the built differences that I showed in the beginning of the video but even then it can sometimes be impossible to teleport a real and a fake mic as they replicate the real mics so closely if you're deliberately buying a fake sm7b B1 that at least the one that I tested did not sound like the real one and I would assume that many other fake sm7bs sound different as well so there's a very good chance that you might not get the true sm7b sound if that's what you're after you have been warned and fake microphones are of course not limited to the sm7b I've seen fakes imitating microphones from companies like Neumann and Sennheiser and many more I don't want to unnecessarily scare you here but I think a bit of caution when buying microphones especially expensive ones can't hurt and you know what they say if it's too good to be true then it very often is alright that's it like share and subscribe and all that good stuff and I will see you all in the next one

Channel: Julian Krause

Views: 77,805

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Id: loRkIJ1bPdM

Length: 7min 40sec (460 seconds)

Published: Mon May 29 2023