Fame is the in-house brand of Music Store Professional based in Cologne (who are fronted by DV247 in the UK) and covers a whole range of musical products including guitars, amplifiers, drums, keyboards, PA, microphones and all sorts of accessories. They are all budget priced and Chinese made items, but seemingly offering good value for money.
The MS 58 Mk II, is an obvious SM58 look alike, though physically the mic body is is slightly longer and the grille mesh is wider spaced. The comparison SM58 is probably at least 15 years old, maybe older, but is well cared-for as it came from Tim Rainey's studio, so it hasn't had a hard life on the road.
The Fame grille has a slightly different thread to the Shure, so they can't be swapped. The mic capsules look very similar (externally at least), though the Shure one sits slightly lower in its housing.
The Fame MS58 is a much lighter microphone than the Shure SM58, weighing 186g vs 313g respectively.
The Fame body splits in the same way as the SM58, with the lower 4/5ths unscrewing to reveal a direct connection from the capsule to the output XLR, with no epoxied-in transformer like on the SM58.
A closer inspection reveal that the Fame is wired for unbalanced use, with pins 1 and 2 linked. Completely unnecessary!
I set up an rough frequency response test to compare the two mics by positioning them at a point about 100mm away in-between the driver and tweeter of one of my Genelec monitor speakers, and then recorded the mics output whilst outputting a pink noise signal to the monitor. I then used Cubase's frequency analysis tool to get the response from a 10 second section of audio for each mic.
Here's the response for the Shure SM58
And here's the response for the Fame MS 58 Mk II
I cut off the lower part of the frequency response for the Fame mic, as I wasn't sure how accurate it was, as unlike the Shure, it stayed pretty high in the top part of the graph all the way to 15Hz instead of falling off like the Shure did.
It's obvious to see that the mics have a very different frequency response, with both exhibiting some proximity boost at the bass end, but the Shure remaining fairly flat above that until its response starts tailing off above 10kHz. the Fame on the other hand, has a very pronounced high-end boost, but with a very noticeable dip at around 6kHz, with almost scooped mids.
One thing the graphs don't show you (though you may have guessed from the unbalanced mode of operation) is that the Fame's output was significantly lower. Its average RMS level was around 7.5dB less than the Shure, so you'd certainly need to jack up the gain on your mixing desk if you used it as-is.
I then did a rough vocal test of both using headphones (to avoid any feedback). The SM58 sounded as it should do, with significant close-up bass boost but otherwise a reasonably detailed and pleasant sound.
The MS 58 on the other hand, was all bass and top end, Not pleasant at all, a very scooped sound. Apart from being significantly quieter, the other thing not apparent from the pink noise test was the level of noise produced, probably as a result of it being unbalanced. I was using a longish XLR lead, maybe 15 metres, which would be reasonably typical overall for stage use. With the SM58 it was just silent when I wasn't speaking. with the MS58 it was "hello seaside!", loads of high frequency noise (not mains hum) very clearly audible.
I found that I don't own a small enough screwdriver with a big enough handle in order to undo the XLR fitting screw (it's done up really tightly), so couldn't snip the link to pin 1 and try it in balanced mode and see if the noise level improved. So I've ordered one (well a nice set) and hopefully tomorrow can report on what difference the mod makes to the sound.
But as it is, I think I've definitely found a worse mic than the C1000, and it doesn't even have the benefit of being robust enough to use as a hammer or door stop etc.
A worthy investigation. Thanks Wonks.
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