Electro-Voice PL80a

Singer for 9 years now, tried Shures en Sennheisers, but raving reviews (and a good price) made me decide to buy the PL80a, without even having tested it... I did try out the EV676 at a live gig and was impressed by the sound.
I use my mic with an effect pedal (DigiTech VX400). If you have a bad mic (if it gives you unwanted noise, like feedback) it will amplify that! It never, ever did with my PL80a in a live situation. At rehearsals I did try to get feedback (just to see how far I could go) and I can say it's far beyound Spinal Tap's 11!

Great looking mic, great sounding mic. The best thing here is the (extremely) high gain before feedback. I myself need no EQ for my voice. This mic will give you a more natural representation of your voice then those Shure SM58's! Compared to these, the PL80a gives you more mid and high frequency. Basically what you would adjust on the EQ with a dynamic Shure microphone (SM or even beta)...

The high gain before frequency also means (especially if you're used to Shure mics) that the proximity effect is small. You need to be close to the mic. A Shure will pick up anything and everything (also things you don't want it to pick up, ofcourse!). With a Shure mic I could scream into it at an arm's length and it would pick it up, the PL80a won't. Also you need to sing straight into the mic. My usual mic technique was to hold a Shure a bit more under my nose to pick up more lows (and snot). The PL80a is more directional.
Also, I noticed it CAN cut off the "F's". Probably again something that had to suffer under the high gain before feedback.

So really the only two negative aspects on this mic is that it's very directional and it can cut off the F's. But still, for a live situation ANYWHERE I would prefer this mic. If you have an own soundstage that's totally set up the way you want to and get an extensive soundcheck, you can go with any kind of mic you want. But the real advantage of this mic is, it's so stage-friendly; it will give you no feedback on any stage you climb up to.

For a dynamic mike (I do not dare to use condensors live) it gives you almost the nearest condensor-like sound.

The price; if it was twice as high I would have doubted to buy it, but probably would have! So the price/quality ration you get is really good! This also makes it a great mic to buy if you do many live performances.

Definately a recomendation for any live singer, especially those that need good amplification and walk/run/jump around on stage.

I've been a professional musician for the past 10 years. I play drums in a local band and for my day job work for a local sound company doing sound for many national acts and corporate events.

Our company has a large inventory of JBL Vertec speakers as well as some EV X-Array and smaller EV boxes. We use Midas and Yamaha mixing consoles and Ashley processing. Our amps are primarily Crown and EV.

Everone knows the "standard" is the Shure SM58 which works well for many applications. Engineers gravitate towards it because it's what they know and musicians ask for it because they've used it before or that's what their engineer recommends. After buying a few of the PL80 from Musician's Friend I will scream at the top of my lungs that this mic is the best mic hands down for most vocal applications.

I've handed it to quite a few major national acts now (even though they specify on their rider Shure SM58) and every single one of them said it was their new favorite microphone.

A few of the features I LOVE about this mic:
*You can cup it in your hand but it still sounds natural. Try this with an SM58! Feedback city.
*It has REALLY high gain before feedback. It gets louder than any other mic I've ever tested on a really loud stage.
*This mic feels awesome in your hand and feels significant.
*On a really big PA system it sounded very natural and required almost no EQ.

Do yourself a favor and try one out. You won't be disappointed.