hey victor. i actually did use it a bit. this is a very old article. i bought a 2nd one (which was tough – they are v v rare) and it sounded totally different! As it stands its not getting much use but i do agree w you, at least this first one i had sounds v good.

its either an XLR3-F, a three-pin Amphenol, or a tuchel.

good luck

c.

A few minor points (also to Rick’s comments):

– The PE54 was Hi-Z only, but other versions (PE54D, PE54SH) were switchable to Lo-Z, just like the 545. I’m not 100% certain, but I think in those cases the differences may have just been branding and what the default impedance was set to (or in the case of the Amphenol connector mics, what cable shipped with them).

– As far as I know, the SM mics were closely related to the 5xx and PE mics, but weren’t quite the same. Shure says today that they use different voice coils. I haven’t determined yet if that’s always been the case or not (trying to find out), but today both the 545/565 and SM57/SM58 are in production and have differences. The SM56 was just an SM57 with integrated stand mount and the ability to switch between Lo-Z and super-Lo-Z. The 546 was the 54x version of the SM56 – balanced XLR, stand shock mount, etc.

It can get quite confusing; I’d have to count them all up, but I think there were at least a dozen 544/545/546/PE54 variants over the years, depending on if they had an integrated stand mount or not, switch or no switch, Lo-Z/Hi-Z/dual, gooseneck, Ampehnol/XLR/hardwired, etc. Not all were available at the same time, but the catalogs from the ’60s show about a half dozen models (three 544 versions, 2 or 3 545 versions, 546).

EV did something similar with their PL lineup. There were rumors that the PL mikes were mikes that weren’t quite good enough to be in their regular lineup, but I never confirmed this, and I worked for one of their divisions at the time. The PL mikes were only sold in music stores.

The Altec 660 looks like the “salt shaker” mike that they (and WECO) made, but the p/n for the salt shaker is 633. I’ll have to look this one up to see what the difference is.

The Shure 777 is a crystal microphone (7xx numbers are crystal), and it is the first microphone I ever bought, back around 1964. I added an FET impedance converter to it, ala a condenser mike, so that I could use it with low-z balanced inputs. It was still a crystal mike. I still have it.

The Shure Commando was a very rugged controlled magnetic omni microphone. This is Shure’s tradename for a controlled reluctance microphone, confirmed by Shure’s website. A single-coil guitar pickup is a sort of controlled reluctance transducer, with the string disturbing the magnetic field surrounding a coil of wire. In the microphone, the microphone’s diaphragm is coupled to a moving armature that sits in a magnetic field and a coil of wire. These were commonly found in paging systems, at carnivals, and in supermarkets. They weren’t terribly expensive, $22.64 at Allied Radio in 1967, compared with $49.98 for the 545.

feel free to email me a pic. i don’t do facebook.