Audix OM5 Vs. Shure Beta 58a: It's Take No Prisoners Time
It's round three of our Audix vs Shure dynamic shootout, and this time around, we bring out the (relatively) big guns: an OM5 and a Beta 58a. Both mics offer excellent fidelity and impressive gain-before-feedback performance, and both are priced identically by most retailers. This is maybe the closest shootout of the bunch, with even Owen's opinionated ears taking more time in deliberations than usual (i.e., he didn't have a preformed opinion before conducting the shootout).
In the end, a judgment is delivered, and a winner announced, but what do your ears tell you? YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WATCH.
OWEN O'MALLEY: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. This is Owen O'Malley, and we're going to be taking a look at the Audix OM5, which is this guy right here.
The OM5 is a hypercardiod passive microphone. It is a step up from the OM2. It is meant to be a direct competitor with the Shure Beta 58, which is this guy right here. They're priced identically in most retailers. Shure is really they guy to beat and so a lot of other companies like Audix, Electro-Voice, and Senheiser end up marketing microphones to really compete with Shure, which is the industry standard microphone.
Now these two microphones are very, very similar sounding, a lot more similar sounding than the OM2 and the SM58. In that case, I definitely favored the OM2. In general, I'm a pretty big fan of Audix Microphones, especially their dynamics. These two microphones are a lot more similar sounding, especially in a vocal, just a spoken word context. So let's AB these in our little faux coffee shop setting, and see if it's easier to tell the difference between the two. Follow me.
Okay, I've got my OM5 set up on your right, my left, and the Beta 58 over here. Again, the levels are the same, I think these are pretty similar sounding mics, at least on spoken word, so let's get another suggestion from the audience. Oh, Meredith Wilson fan. Right on.
[OWEN SINGING MEREDITH WILSON'S "TILL THERE WAS YOU" AND PLAYING ACOUSTIC GUITAR]
[ON OM5] There was love all around [ON BETA 58]But I never heard it singing No I [ON OM5] never heard it at all [ON BETA 58] Till there was you
[ON OM5]Till there was [ON BETA 58]you
You know, I might actually prefer the Beta 58 on that one. I think that the OM5 has some hotter sort of lower mids. The mid range is a little bit hotter, almost toasty sounding. It's really subtle. But I think that especially on the full-throated singing, the 58 retains a more natural character, retains a little bit more clarity.
Let's go to our feedback rejection test. Okay, so we've got our two microphones set up at the same off axis angle and equidistant to the driver in this powered front-of-house speaker. I'm going to be raising the overall gain level on each mic individually to see where the feedback rejection threshold actually is on these two microphones. Let's take a closer look at these knobs because it is going to be close.
Okay, so we're using a Yamaha MG8/2FX, a very small little mixing console, a pretty clean sounding mixing console. I've got our Audix OM5 on channel 1, and our Beta 58 on channel 2. Let's raise these dials real slowly. There's no decibel labeling on these rotary dials here so we're just kind of go by o'clocks so here we go. [OWEN RAISES GAIN ON THE OM5] This is the OM5. Okay, so we're right at about 11 o'clock. At this 11 o'clock detent, we start hearing some continuous feedback there, not terrible. When you get past there though, it gets pretty bad.
Let's move over to channel 2 on the Beta 58. [OWEN RAISES GAIN ON THE BETA 58]. Okay, so we start to get the feedback a little bit earlier on channel 2, a little bit before 11 o'clock. As you can hear, it's at a slightly lower frequency which is interesting. [OWEN CONTINUES TESTING FEEDBACK REJECTION] Well, this is no scientific test, obviously, but you can see that there is a little bit of a higher feedback threshold on the OM5, probably not enough to make a huge difference in the field. Again, these are very, very similar sounding mics, a little bit more feedback with the Beta 58 but I think I am leaning towards the 58 regardless.
Well, there you go. I am not a paid Audix employee. Thanks for joining us again on Gearwire.Com. This has been an AB test with the Audix OM5 and the Shure Beta 58. Thanks for joining us and we're going to see you again soon.
Based on what I could hear
Based on what I could hear on the video, sonically I like the Beta 58 better. It seems more natural and seems to have bit more body. The Audix seems a tad brighter, and might be better in a particular room, a particular mix situation, where you need to cut through a little more. The feedback differences could be affected by the slightly different positions of the mics in your test.
Yeah...
...the mics are positioned as similarly as I could get them, what with our lack of calibrating armatures and meters. . . but yeah, admittedly not a controlled environment, here at Gearwire Studios.
But I agree with you about the Beta 58. The Audix is a bit more aggressively voiced. Perfect for screaming into, or cutting through a really dense stage mix, but that's nothing you can't do with the Beta 58 and a halfway decent parametric EQ.
Beta58 or OM-5???
The test is pretty unbiased, however from my view the feedback actually came in at the same level. I have both mics in my arsenal and I will say this. My Beta58 is about 11 years old now and my OM-5 is about 3 mos. old. I have used both on the field live PA and in church applications.Sorry audix fans, the Beta58 still out performs my newer OM-5 in all aspects of pickup, gain before feedback, and overall tonal quality. Please bear in mind that I am not an Audix basher. In my church band we use (for vocals only) SM58's/ OM-2's/ Beta58's/ OM-5. As far as the Band members go, they are much happier to see a SHURE in front of them than an Audix. These are non biased choices made. They just prefer the shure sound. Now if the church was able to afford more BETA58's we would only use these mics. "Hey SHURE Brothers!.. any chance of a sponsorship?? LOL" If you are in Guam, Stop by St. Jude Catholic Church in Sinajana 10:30am Sunday Mass. We'll let the mics speak for themselves. Happy listening all and God Bless.
Ken San Agustin
Lead Sound Engineer/ St. Jude Catholic Church Guam
Vocalist- Closer 2 Heaven Band
Interesting, practical comparison--Good job! Do more shootouts!
I'd love to see a whole series of these.
Next up, Sennheiser e845 vs the Beta 58A?
and how about this...
The Beta 57 vs the Beta 58? Are they really identical?
I hope you you do more mic "shootouts" in the future.
Beta 58 killed
My one caveat is that I owned an OM5 for a while and I liked it a lot better than what I'm hearing in this test. But here, to my ear, there's no comparison at all. The Shure is far clearer, smoother, and more musical, with a nice round, but open quality. The only thing missing is more detail on top, which you don't expect from a dynamic in this price range. But it's a nice sound that I'd always be happy to get. The Audix sounds thin and grainy by comparison.
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