Shure Beta 57 and 58 knockoffs

[Timmando]

I bought one of each of these off of ebay awhile ago and never really thought I had a knockoff. That was until my friend brought one of his old beta58s and I ran that into channel 1 and mine into channel 2. What a difference there is! I turned his volume up to about 1/3 and had to turn mine up to 1/2 to get the same volume. I also noticed that when I put his mic in front of a speaker, I got feedback from about 3 feet away, but mine got no feedback at that same distance from the speaker. I switched channels and they both behaved the same way, so it wasn't the channel. It seems that they were definitely two very different mics, when they should have been very similar in operation. His older one had better volume, overall better sound. How can I tell if I have a knockoff?

[jake-mando]

If the band that goes around the mic that says Shure. If it's a sticker it's a fake. I to got sucked into a pair of SM-57 fakes. One works better then the other. I did a google search and had found pictures of the insides that shows the differences. Wire colour was one, and I believe there was something else as well? I just don't remember. I think I found the information on a recording forum, but I could be wrong. Sorry to hear you ended up with fakes as well. It sucks that people feel the need to rip good people off. I guess as they say buyer beware.

[almeriastrings]

Visually, some of them are incredibly close to the real thing. Even the packaging and paperwork can look very convincing. Real hard to tell unless you take them apart (or use them). Not just Beta 57 and 58's, but regular models too. Watch out also for fake Sennheiser headphones and mics... a lot of fake E845's out there, especially on Ebay. Even if you have never bought one, but own the real thing, this trade has hurt you, because it has severely dented the used value of these mics as people are reluctant to buy them for fear of ending up with a counterfeit. There's a huge amount of them out there...