A lot of podcasters have probably looked up photos of professional broadcast studios and seen the Shure SM7B, the Heil PR-40, or the Electro Voice RE-20, and thought, that's the mic I need in order to sound good. Well, that is not necessarily the case. You can get a perfectly good sound quality without spending between $350 and $500 on a single mic set up.
There are a few technical differences between the two mics I'm discussing today. The first is the frequency response (the range of frequencies the microphone is capable of picking up). The SM58 picks up 50 - 15,000 Hz, while the SM7B picks up 50 - 20,000 Hz. The other main difference I noticed is in the output level. On this front, the SM58 wins out with an output level of -54.5 db, while the SM7B outputs -59 db. There are other subtle differences in polar pattern, and features on each mic that I recommend you check out, but most of you don't care about the technical stuff. That's why I made a video.
The above video is a short demonstration showing you the sonic similarities and differences between a $100 microphone and a $350 microphone. I hope that this video helps you determine whether or not you want to spend $350 on ONE broadcast level microphone, or on THREE perfectly fine non-broadcast microphones.
Shure SM58: http://amzn.to/1KvwqrR
Shure SM7B: http://amzn.to/1Kvww2B
Cloudlifter CL-1: http://amzn.to/1JaH8GT
