I wrote briefly about Cairo Egypt in an earlier post. As usually happens on our vacations, I try to seek out whatever regional audio-oddities I can. Cairo did not offer much in this regard, but I managed to find a few items of interest.
Most of what I came across was public-address equipment and rudimentary recording gear. This caught my eye in a shop beneath a highway overpass in the center of the city.
Look familiar? Yes it does. Today we will take a listen to this marvel of copyright infringement and see how it compares to it’s Shure-brand inspiration.
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Despite having an XLR-M output jack, the Shour is a high-Z, unbalanced mic. Connecting it to the DI input of the MBOX and cranking the gain resulted in audible digital inteference noise (sounded similar to iPhone interference), so in order to nullify this, I instead used a direct-box inline. This DI is one of my own, from a series that I built using 1970’s AKG UT-330 matching transformers.
OK here’s the sound clips. Have a listen. First, the SM57.
…and now the Shour (through the Direct-Inject box):
A few things are obvious: The Shure 57 has much better low-end response evident, even with the signal being an acoustic guitar mic’d at 2-feet. I would imagine that if you stuck these mics on a bass guitar amp or floor tom, the difference would be much more dramatic. On the other hand, this could be due to the Direct Inject box, and not the mic itself. I have never measured the response of this DI box.
The other clear difference is the noise level. Since I am using the DI box, I needed to boost the gain on the Shour input to 100%. Anyone who has used an M-Box will know that this basically creates a White-Noise-Generator. Those preamps are terrible.
Anyone have a similar knock-off mic story?
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