real vs fake shure sm58s mic

 i recently bought a $100 shure sm58s mic from amazon, then right afterward i saw one on ebay for $30. i bought it & did a deep comparison when it arrived, & found it was an obvious counterfeit.

here is all the evidence for your perusal:

its funny that the counterfeit strap is actually nicer.

the mount is totally functional, & the solid inner wall seems to be better design.

shure actually gives us a lower quality sticker

now for the actual mic

older counterfeits used red & black, but these days they use yellow & green. however, shure is now using 4 wires. i have previously also bought a used shure mic from guitar center for $80 that had the correct switch (not red pcb) but it also only had 2 wires. 

im upset that the counterfeit actually has better body construction.

i did actually also test them in studio one too.

it seems that theres a good reason for the real mic to not actually have a true off switch, something about avoiding speaker pops etc when switching.

however, i think shure should have a better design to acutally silence the input without risking pops.

ironically, when switching the fake mic on/off, there was no response from the interface, but when i switched the real mic on/off, i did hear an audible thump/bassy pop, so it sort of defeats the fucking purpose.

if the high-mids werent so harsh on the fake i would prefer it to the real one, 

however, the smoother sound is worth putting up with the lazier body machining but borderline is not worth the switch noise. if you still have to turn off the interface volume to avoid pops when using the switch, the switch is fucking pointless.