Would anyone happen to have any knowledge or experience using the st69? I haven't really found a bad review on it, but I'm nervous to purchase it because it's GC's "in house" brand. I would mainly be using it for pop music, and just for my voice which is around a baritone or low tenor.

Other mics in consideration were the MXL4000 and the blue baby bottle

This is my first post, so hopefully you'll trust that I'm experienced!

I picked up the ST69 a few weeks ago from my GC guy, who is actually an incredibly accomplished session bassist (Lennon, McCartney, two insanely famous late-night show live bands) who hooked me up with an insane deal on this mic. Less than half of retail price.

He says he brought two to a taping of one of those famous late-night shows, and did blind tests with the band, putting them up against some U87s. Everybody preferred the ST69. The big TV show producers then bought a few sets of ST69 to use on drums, and this is a show where they have, and I quote, "87s coming out of their ass" haha (I know this is a big statement to come from somebody's first post, so I understand if any of you think it's BS. It's not, though)

So in my small project studio, where I'm recording female vocals that are light and airy, this mic has been incredible. Super warm, like flannel sheets warm. It's exactly what I'd hoped it would be.

From what I understand, these were Groove Tubes mic designs (see: GT69) and when they were going out of business, Guitar Center bought them and rebranded the mics as Sterling Audio.

The metal case it comes in has a plastic handle, and the shock mount has a crappy plastic knob that's impossible to tighten up all the way. Those are the only cons that I've encountered. Also, this may matter to you - you can't open it up and change the tube.

So far, I've only used it on acoustic guitars, electric guitar (Fender Princeton Reverb played clean) and female vocals. It's been great on all of them so far.

Apparently GC will start blowing them out soon, so try talking with an associate there and see if they can hook you up.

Several years ago at Dallas Guitar Center I was looking for a mike for male country project. He was a tenor- baritone range
We compared U87, U47, AKG 414 AND the sales dude injected A Sterling ST 69 on 8" 2 way studio monitors- don't remember the brand. I played some program material thru them to get a sense of the freq response. They were quite good.
Results:
The U87,U47, Akg-414 all sounded Very good. The U87 had more airy highs,. Listened to U47 vs Akg414 both sounded very similar and better to me than U87. Then each was compared to the Sterling ST69.
Amazing, except for a very slight perception of noise floor, the ST69 sound better to me because it was smoother. In fact shows.flat from 20hz to 9khz and then over 9k to 20khz there is about a 2 -3 DB mild smooth peak at about 15khz and fairly flat to 20 khz.

I have two ST69 and upgraded the tubes to select lower noise tubes. Got about 5 db improvement.
I have about $800 each in them with upgraded tubes. Fat bottom, Smooth slight airy highs. Very well balanced. Presumably , Spending lots more money will only lower the noise floor . For $$5k+ difference, I will put windscreen on the Mike and ask singer to get slightly closer
-(8"). So put a 90-95 DB vocal on the mike and noise is no problem 🤪
The ST69 from.my A/B tests is an amazingly accurate smooth microphone that can be tweaked with tube change for about 18 db self noise floor and achieve 80+ s/n ratio.. not bad for tubes.