Which dynamic mic should you buy?

Published on June 13, 2020

Shawn Milochik has published a cool blind test of dynamic microphones. Go take it yourself and choose which ones you prefer.

But also, if you don’t have time for that or would like to know what I think, here’s my rating of Shawn’s dynamic mics based on his recordings.

Favorite

Shure SM7B ($400)

Very good

Samson Q2U ($60)
Electro-Voice RE20 ($450)

Good

Behringer XM8500 ($23)
Sennheiser MD 441U ($900)
Rode Procaster ($230)

Least favorite

Sennheiser MD 421-II ($380)
Heil PR40 ($330)
Sennheiser e 835-S ($100)
Rode PodMic ($100)

I’m not publishing the correspondence between the microphone models and Shawn’s codenames so that you can still take the test. I added the retail prices of these microphones in USD (mostly based on Sweetwater) for a quick reference.

The usual disclaimer is that the way a mic sounds depends on the voice, but I would think these results are generalizable at least to some extent. Shure SM7B once again has proven its dominance, and Samson Q2U its value for money.