Sennheiser e865

Condenser mic. This thing has an awesome sound and is great for home recording and live use. I use it live in my rock band and it has a very clean sound and never feeds back. It outdoes the Shure SM58beta, SM57, and Samson S12 when i did a comparison. I'd like to do some more comparisons but it's the best music mic i've ever used to this day.

Playing as a semiprofessional since 1985. More than 25 recording projects to date (from analogue to today's usual harddisc). About 30 gigs per annum.

It's a condenser microphone with a super cardiod pattern, Boost at 1000 Hz. Needs 48 V Phantom power - some mixers/powermixers for smaller equipment do not deliver this!
I use it for vocals, when playing keyboards. I play in an electrified acoustic environment, mainly Irish trad. with modern influences,
I compared this directly to SM58beta, Beyerdynamic Opus 69, AKG D880, Rode S1 and Neumann KMS 105. Needless to say, that SM58 fell very short with its very muddy, unprecise sound. The KMS 105 is more pristine and has the overall more natural sound yet. Opus 69 comes very near to this one - with a significant price difference! AKG D880 I simply didn't like and Rode S1 is despite the texts you read on their website a major (!) disappointment, bearing a very metallic, cheap sound. The reason I chose the e865 was simply the flattering effect on my not so powerful voice. It comes across with more grip and presence than I could offer acousticly...
It also rounds off the bass very nicely for me. We tried it out with severlal singers and it seems to fit this profile of mine perfectly. A friend, who has a very powerful and loud voice seemed to get too heavy using this mike and was better off with a beyerdynamic TG81X.
In contrast to what was said about the e855 this one is also perfect for female vocalists with "tiny voices". Feedback has never been a relevant problem.
So all in all, I have not sung over a mike that suits my voice better. I even prefer this over the KMS 105 for its "colouring" effect. Of course when considering this mike the slightly artificial sound changes have to be taken into account. Also I cannot speak for the e865 challenged under rock noise level, as I only use it with more moderate loudness - we have played before over 500 listeners on the other hand, with a considerable noise level and 10 open microphones on stage with no major problems. For my particular needs a 10 for the e865..