| M160.
They have balls for days, and none of the fizzy bullshit on top that you don't need. Midrange is articulate and cuts through nicely. I don't find them to sound scooped at all. Quite the opposite actually. Very full sounding. I find that I'm EQing things less, esp. down around the 180-300 Hz range, where I usually scoop out "the mud". With the 160, that "mud" is now useable, good stuff. They handle high SPL just fine. I just recorded some crushingly loud doom/metal stuff with mine, and it held up just fine under the pressure.
In my experience, they seem to work better when backed off the speaker a bit. I usually keep mine 8"-12" off the speaker, but then again, I've never really been a fan of the "smashed up against the grill cloth" sound.
They rule on so many other things too, which was a big influence on my purchase. I don't believe in buying mics for 1 specific application.
Other than that, I'd recommend getting the AMI/TAB-Funkenwerk T58 Transformer for one of your SM57's. It makes a noticeable difference. I had a difficult time getting guitar sounds that I like from a stock 57, but all the issues I had (honky midrange, high end fizz, loose/muddy low end) are usually not an issue any longer. The T58 smoothed out the high frequency harshness and midrange "honk", and really tightened up the low end. In combination with the 160, you could get some pretty rad sounds, I think. |