Yeh i got 2 fake ones...little brighter than regular ones...but you know, every mic has some kind of use, i use them sometimes when recording. If i have a particularly dark source, they work great...i don't treat them as fake 58s, i treat them as different mic's altogether. I think i got a little lucky though in that they weren't totally s***, just a little brighter...

I watched some youtube video real vs. fake sm58 and the guy said, shake the mic in some directions while is plugged in. The fake one will generate pretty audible noise caused by the shaking while the real one will result only small amount of noise.

Mine is not generating that distinct noise. Maybe that' is some kind of sign?

All signs point to real, relax and enjoy your mic and Chrismukkah

Merry X-Mas heh

just listen to it. If it sounds cack it's a fake as real ones don't sound cack. If you have a known Genuine to compare to do that.

If you can't tell the difference, it doesn't matter anyway.

As to the actual Shure mics versus the "fake" ones, I prefer to refer to them as the Mexican version versus the Chinese version. Today, none of them are the old Unidyne USA version, no matter where you buy them.

I would ONLY buy Shure mics from a legitimate retailer - not via E-bay or other dubious sources.

In australia there are actually legitimate shure retailer's on eBay....a lot of the music stores around australia use eBay to get to interstate buyers...but thats about as far as my eBay activity goes...

Like we've more or less established here, you've most probably got a real one...the biggest difference between the a fake and a real, when you plug in a fake, it'll be really bright approaching the top end, the real one will be pretty smooth with a pronounced proximity effect...

Honestly I don't know why this was that big of a question for the OP... from the 4th picture (i think) you see the massive pile of packaging from the shure box, this wasn't from an unlabeled box from a street vendor...

I understand that one could pass over that photo while over examining all the other closeups of the dismantled mic.


Unless I'm totally wrong that there are people putting fakes inside of legit Shure packaging...

ACTUALLY...thats what was happening. They had scanned the packaging and remade the packaging as well as the mic's...right down to the shure sticker...most of them don't include the velcro cable tie though. But because they were doing this with the packaging, thats what sparked shure to physically change the packaging. So if you bought a 57 or 58 from a Registered Dealer now, unless it was old stock, it'll be in a different looking box, they made it so that it was harder to just scan and everything...

Old Packaging (same for 57 and 58, other than the numbers...):


New Packaging (again same for 57 and 58...):

the one way to truly verify if its fake or not is to check the impedance. if it reads higher then 400 ohms its fake if it reads anywhere below 400 ohms its real.

I doubt if it's that cut and dry?

Pretty much is I called shure up back when i was worried i had grabbed a couple fake sm57's and they the impedance on their products sm57 and sm58 read below 400 ohms and to check the mics pcb board for 2 letter initials stamped in red

Hey,
seller says that SM58 he's got weighs "about 280 grams". Is that "significantly" less?

In my experience with fake Shures -I have almost them all-, I would say:
-SM58: they have "fixed" all the differences: gold contacts, better bag,... but still sounds very narrow, has poor feedback rejection and needs lots of gain, a karaoke microphone at best...
-SM57: Almost the same as 58, but even worse sound, very poor. Very little signal for an amount of gain
-Beta 57: Better than the SM fakes, but still very lighter, worse foam inside, poor bag, and sonically a bit better, but much still a lot of feedback
-Beta 87: Not a bad DYNAMIC at all, it came with an XLR to mono jack cable... Still sounds better than the SM58 to me, but very far from the Shure model.
-Beta 58: Absolutely another case here: mine sounds almost identical to the real one, has the same weight, color, bag, the name on the body is not just a sticker,... Very strange to me that this model is so different from the others. I dare to think this one is made on the same factory as the real ones, but of course I don't know...

And why do I - you're perhaps asking yourself- know so many fakes? well, the first ones were bought on eBay with all my innocence for small live venues or conferences, the last ones came just from insane curiosity, bought from a Chinese site at a suspiciously cheap price; and my advice is: STAY AWAY from them, not just because they are probably making Shure a lot of pain, I guess, but cause they are simply bad microphones, it's better to buy cheap but legal brands with some warranty and fair commerce. I do own a lot of real Shures and love them all. I don't want such a brand to dissapear under the Chinese absence of ethics and commercial fairplay. I will never buy another suspicious mic just because it seems funny to me.

Although this Beta58...

I know this is an old thread but I just bought some sm58s off craigslist that I think may be fake. the seller assured me they were a newer version that is lighter than the pre Mexico ones. they pass most of the visual tests, the pins are correctly marked, all accessories look legit, warranty card and bag and clip and cable tie.. the main thing is there is nothing in the handle! the wires just go all the way down and connect to the xlr pins at the bottom! no glue or anything. that has to be fake right? I will weigh them and test their sound as soon as I get home and post a follow up..

that's not good, unless they've been modified to transformerless by someone. from the factory they have transformers. there's no way Shure did away with the old design, unless they are insane, (which I don't think they are). does the wiring look "stock" (proable fake)? or re-done (possible mod)?

The wiring looks stock. I just weighed one of them. 207 grams! Plus the ring around the grill is flat, so.. totally fake. And now the seller is refusing to give me a refund, insisting that it's real and just a "new version." Ugh. I really don't want to drag the police into this..

yikes, sorry to hear it

Just tell the guy that you want a refund, or you will see to it that he is prosecuted to the fullest extent for forgery. Give him 4 hours to decide. If no refund in 4 hours, goto the cops.

Sent from my PC36100

Just wanted to chime in on this as I have fallen victim to the "is my sm58 real??" paranoia. I called the tech line at Shure last week and when I spoke to the rep about the weight of the mic being the sure fire way to tell if it was real he replied with that being false. He said that it can vary due to the epoxy used internally and that the only way to tell if it was a fake or not is to send it to Shure to have them go over it. Now with that said, he also was a bit grumpy so I don't know if he hadn't had his coffee yet or what but it did get the gears turning again in a very unpleasant way.

Yeah I just bought one and was sus when the xlr of my lead was sloppy in the body and the sound crackled when moved. I measured the impedance/resistance at 600 ohm not the 150 it should be. I pulled it appart and found the transformer was fake too with the wires running straight through the gum to the xlr. (I pulled the whole thing out) All external features looked right and if not for its obvious issues I wouldn't have looked into it. Take a mutimeter to it.....they don't seem to fake the real impedance.

Fake vs Real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaRsZcw8NsY