hi,

I'm pretty new with the shure microphones. And the China counterfeit mics made me to open this thread. The mic was bought from ebay in USA, the seller claimed it's real, but after I saw those pretty close to the original fake ones, I'm sceptic. What do you think, is my shure sm58 real?

simple test is to weigh it:


it should be 298 grams

Got some pics of the box?

Did it come with a cable?

Adlen, are you sure all the Shure mics come with a cable ??? My SM-57 didn't…

That's the point, a lot of the fakes come with a crappy XLR cable like the €2 ones on Thomann, the Shure one's don't

Looking at the pics you've given already I'd say it's real. There is printing on the board between capsule and transformer, the transformer is pretty close to the surface, there is no sticker saying "do not open, voids warranty, etc" by the capsule and the grille is very spherical rather than an oval type shape.

The mic bag should be 10" and the SHURE logo should not be visible from the inside

Real it has a transformer in it.

A lot of fakes have transformers but they are set much lower in the lower chassis of the microphone. The glue starts about an inch into the lower chassis whereas real ones have it much higher at about 1cm.

No cable, just the mic, it was about $100. A friend of mine said is real too, because on the real vs fake, there is some difference with the silicone stuff.

P.S. I'm a little confused with the second photo. Should that recycle bin and the letter 'B' be on it or not?

I don't recall ever seeing that on a '58, real or fake. Then again I rarely examine the XLR connector heh.

All other signs point to real.

whydid you decide to pay full price for a microphone through ebay when you could've bought it through a reputable retailer?

I'm happy to hear it. heh But If anyone take a look at the XLR connector, it'll be interesting to know. Thanks

Sorry, didn't mention above, the mic is a gift.

I'll take a look at all our SM58s, SM57s and Beta58/57s when I get back in January and see if any of them have the logo/number on. They were bought over a long time frame so we have a wide range of batches.

It looks real... but I see some differences in the chip material and in the XLR plastic casting. Although I'm sure these things can change depending on where it was manufactured as well as the date of manufacturing.

Like a fella said before, weigh it.

Thanks man, maybe after that I'll be 100% sure that I have the genuine stuff. Because it would be pathetic to keep some cheap sh*t named sm58, thought it's real and in the end it turns out that it isn't. But after those replies I'm starting to think that I have the real one heh

Yeah, also when I'll come home I'll give it a try, weigh it, and see the results. F**king cheap Chinese counterfeits.

How does it sound?

Well, it's kind of smooth sound I think, and If I'm moving it so hard, it's not hearing those rough noise sound.

As I said before, to be 100% sure if your sm58 is real, you should weigh it (on a kitchen scale for example)

Only a shure will weigh 298 grams, fakes will be (significantly) lighter

Sure thing, when I'll get home these days I will definetely weigh it. I didn't forget about it heh

Kind of related to this thread I guess, but here's an email we recevied the other week. Rather audacious one might say;

hey guys,

I weighted the mic, and it's 320gr. What do you think?

To be honest I'd never heard the weight thing before but it seems obvious that fakes would be a bit lighter, apparently they're 'significantly' lighter though so I'd say 320g is fine, they're probably using a slightly heavier metal or something than when Jamie heard/measured this.

Honestly, I hope you are right :(

If your scales say 320g I think that is probably within the margin of error for your kitchen scales. I'd say you have a genuine one!

Here's a story about fake shures...

I once bought 3 of them from a seller that claimed they came from a rental company. Like new shape, etc, but no packaging. Turned out they were fakes...

They came bubblewrapped in a blank cardboard box with a generic holder, but without the shure bag. They looked exactly the same as genuine ones exept that the brand at the bottom of the grill was not printed on the mic; it was a sticker. Without paying attention, you would not notice.

We found out they were fakes several months afterwards when we noticed the sticker...

But you know what, we still use them today, and the sound wasn't bad at all. A little less "beefy", but not cheap sounding. When compared side by side we hear the difference, but no one can tell when rehearsing. They weight about the same too. No noticable difference.

So in the end, we got our lesson, but it did not cost us an arm and a leg, and the mics still sound decent.

I think the most foolproof definitive test is to plug it into a PA or some headphones next to a KNOWN real 58 and do a quick A/B voice test at identical settings. obviously if they sound identical you've got a real one.

there's lots of minor cosmetic differences over the many years these have been made, and among the fakes; seems to confuse the issue a bit

I was sold a fake SM57 that sounds waaaay brighter than a real one. It's not a super useful mic, but I found out that it kind of nails that bright "pfft" 60's snare drum sound that you hear so much in those old recordings, so I use it sometimes on snares

check for impedance between pin 2 and 3 , fakes have much higher impedance, i don't remember the values, but thy are in the thread about fake or not.
I thinks that's one of the only ways to check for genuinity, i had a fake 57 and it looked just like the real thing.

The actual impedance should be 300Ω right?

I've got 2 real 58s, and 2 fake 58s...from the pictures, i can say with about 95% certainty that yours is real...the extra 5% would be me holding it in my hand, the real and fake ones FEEL different...but yeh, yours looks real...

Obviously you've probably worked that out by now...but from experience, the real ones come with the velcro cable tie thing. You will also notice a slight gap where the cartridge screws in, this is because the edges are rounded, the fake ones generally get this part wrong...

Another thing that tells you straight away if its fake, it'll have a caution warranty void if removed sticker on the element when you screw off the ball. Real 58s don't have that.

The other thing would be that just under ball where it says "shure sm58", the fake ones are a sticker, the real ones are printed straight on the metal.

EDIT: yeh the impedance is 300ohm