Which is better, and why? More durable, clearer sound, less feedback, etc.

Beta clearer. 935 sounds better and more durable though.

For me, the 935 wins, no contest. Similar GBF, similarly good build quality, but to me there is no sweet spot in the high end of a beta58, just goes from dull to shrill. Just my opinion after thousands of hours with both mics.

935, but I certainly don't mind the Beta58.

Chris

What about the e935 compared to the e945? Is it a big enough difference to justify the price jump?

The 35 is a cardioid and 45 is a super-cardioid. It's more about figuring out which one is better for your purpose. They do sound slightly different though.

Does the tightness of the pattern matter when we're playing on stage and he's gonna be yelling pretty good into it? Obviously the pattern matters, but if he's only gonna be a few inches away and gonna be taking up all of it's "ear", does it make a huge difference?
Also, whats the sound difference?

a tight pattern on a loud stage is an _advantage_ as you get less bleed from stage sound.
PS just to repeat myself, this sounds like a situation where a Beyer M69 would shine. Good luck.

e935 is miles better than anything Shure, no contest

So much this. Just plug them in side by side and it will be very apparent.

I us both the 935 and beta 58 regularly and if I had to pick one it would be the 935. Saying that the beta 58 can really suit some voices more than the 935. The 945 is also a great mic and ideally I'd like to have a couple of each in my live mic collection.
I had the Beyer M69 here for a while and whilst it was a great mic I personally preferred some of my other mics.

As already mentioned, you are comparing two mics with completely different polar patterns.

You would be better to compare the E935 to an SM58 and the E945 to the Beta58. That is really more an apples for apples comparison.

Personally, I prefer the Sennheiser's in the 900 range, but every voice is different and I use a lot of different things for vocal. IN fact I use and own the list below as I have found which mic suits each of my clients voices better.

Sennheiser E935
Sennheiser E934
Sennheiser E965
Shure SM58
Shure Beta58
Shure Beta57 (yes for vocals...very rarely though)
Telefunken M81
Audio Technica AE4100
Audio Technica AE6100
Beyer Dynamic M69
They all do different things on different voices better or worse.

I also pack a variety of vocal mics. The 935 is a good mic, though I tend to avoid pairing it with female vocals, and favor it with aggressive male vocals. Last night was an interesting vocal mic test, worked a benefit of several local acts I'd mixed many times before, and I made an effort to get each vocalist on the mic I knew worked best for them. The best female vocalist on the roster pairs perfectly with an older AKG D770, so I used that on all the gals, and there was nothing remotely approaching a complaint about that decision.

Things got interesting when a male vocalist needed two vocal mics for two positions (keys and guitar), and wanted to use his beta 58 at the guitar position. He was joined by another male vocalist I knew paired well with a 935, a really powerful voice, very different from the other. What was a real revelation was that both voices worked better with the mic I put at the keyboard position, an EV N/D767a. The 935 guy's voice even worked better on the 767 with the EQ still set for the other vocal.

Just goes to show it's A/B tests like this that reveal how various mics work with various vocals, not forum posts. Notice how I'm not saying the 767 is a better mic than the 935 and beta58, it just worked better in that particular situation and shows promising versatility. There are situations where you need a versatile mic for various voices and other times you need the right mic for one particular voice.

I've also had similar success with the n/d767a and it gets used for nearly all male vocal duties here.Two of the female vocalists I work with own the E935 and beta58. The female vocalist who owns the Sennheiser is a mezzo soprano gospel singer and we've tried a lot of mic's on her voice (e945, e838, audix om6, om3, akg d5, beta58, sm58, m69 and nd767a) and the e935 works best for her tone and style so far. The beta58 sounds lovely on the other female vocalist but I've not tried on any of the others on her voice yet.
One mic that I own and find myself using for a lot of female vocalists is the JZ HH1. I love the sound of this mic and find it has condenser like qualities. I'd like to do an a/b with this mic and some of the other mics I mentioned on the female vocalist who owns the beta 58.

I'd like to add the e935, e945 and beta 58 to my own mic collection at some point.

If you are after an e935, the e838 has the same capsule, and when comparing it to my friend's e935 we found no discernible difference. I believe they may be the same microphone in different housings. Another one to check out is the Blue Encore 200, very similar to the e838/935, with a smoother top end. Right now on sale at sweetwater two for one, so $75 ea. The Blue mic smoothed out a kind of harsh top end I got out of the e838 on one female vocalist I was doing sound for, without loosing clarity.

Where did you hear they have the same capsule? I spoke to someone at Sennheiser and he said they have different capsules. From my understanding the E838 is the same as the E840 apart from the colour? I also find the e838 and e935 sound noticeably different.

Yes, the e838 and 840 are identical for sure. It's been a while, I can't remember exactly where I heard about the same capsule, but if you look at the specs for either the e838 or 840, those and the frequency plot are identical to the e935.

I'll leave it to you to decide which one sounds better but also consider the big difference in proximity effect between the two. The beta58 has a huge amount of proximity effect and I find the tone to be all over the place as singers move it around their mouths. The sennheiser unit has a much more manageable proximity effect.

How do the two of them compare in terms of feedback in a live situation?
Is the e945 wit supercordioid better suited for avoiding feedback and bleed than the beta58?
Real life experience is appreciated!

the sennhieser e935 is better. the e945 has more proximity effect to it so I don't really use them except for the ones that like to run around with the microphone in thier hand and use proper mic techniques. on mic cuppers, its doesn't matter which one they use.

I like using the 945 on other stuff like latin percussion, woodblocks, chimes, and things where the small condensors pick up too much of the wrong thing (hi-hat for example)

This. The 935 and 838 are very different sounding. the 838 is very close to the 840.

Not to say they can't sound different, i noticed very little difference in our brief comparison, but here are the frequency response charts, including an overlayed one with both plots.

Not that frequency plots explain everything about a mic, but I'd be surprised if two different capsules had a response this similar...

Just to be clear, we are talking about the e838, not the e835.

First one e838
Second e935
Third Overlay

I can clearly hear a huge difference between the 800 series and the 900 series Sennheiser mics.

I found where I read they were the same...since the e838 and e840 are the same, (one is silver, one is black), his comparison of the e840 to the e935 is apt.

Vocal Mic Roundup

Robert Allen's posts at the bottom of the page

Here is Sennheiser's response to whether the E838 and E935 share the same capsule when I asked this question a couple of years ago :-

"Thank you for your enquiry with regards to the e840 & e935. These mics are very similar but the capsules are not the same. The e935 has a different shock-mount and is made to a higher tolerance to the capsule found in the e840. The e838 is now a discontinued microphone. The e935 has a lot better handling characteristics when compared directly with the e840. The capsules are of a higher tolerance and in effect this means that if you use more than one e935 then there is far more chance that the mics will sound identical. As far as frequency response and tone are concerned then the tone of an e935 is likely to be better than the e840.
Obviously sound is very subjective and the most important factor is to find a mic that best suits you vocally. This means that it will reproduce the sounds as you expect them to be or as you as an individual hear them."

I am going to borrow an E935 and do a thorough a/b over the next week or so.

That's interesting Dickiefunk, I look forward to your results! Reading between the lines, it seems as though some e840s could test very similar to the e935...some maybe not so much...I dunno.

At this point I'm just confused

Yes I've not actually done an a/b of the E838 and E935 personally. My impression of using both regularly on various gigs was the E838 was thicker sounding but time will tell I guess.
If the E838 is that similar to the E935 it could well be the biggest bargain for live mics in the UK as they cost 1/3 the price of the E935. I bought two "as new" E838's for £30 each! They are certainly one of my top two sub £100 live mics that I've used or tried (the other being the EV n/d767a). I tend to use the EV on thicker sounding voices and the E838 on thinner voices. They both compliment each other extremely well.

Sennheiser mics are very commonly faked, if you know what to look for it's OK, but be careful.

Chris

Yes I've been well aware of some Sennheiser fakes. They tended to be the black E840/845 and E945. Mine were bought at different times from different sellers and were secondhand. Both sellers had proof of purchase from main dealers. I also recently bought a brand new E838 for our local village hall and all three appear/sound to be identical. I'm not aware of fakes being made of the E838 either?

I have never cared for the Beta 58. As others have pointed out, it tends to sound harsh and brittle easily compared to other mics mentioned here.

My favorite is the ND767a as a few others have stated, but I also like the Sennheisers which are quite nice as well.

I don't agree that the Beta 58 has similar feedback resistance to the ND767a though. Not in my A/B test it didn't.