Electro-Voice RE520 Supercardioid Condenser Handheld Vocal Microphone Reviews
With its vivid 3D sound and feedback-fighting polar pattern, the Electro-Voice RE520 supercardioid handheld condenser mic delivers premium live vocal performance at an unheard-of price. Its full-range (40Hz–20kHz) frequency response is tailored to complement the human voice, with crystal-clear presence and a rich, full body to capture the full impact of every career-defining performance. Meanwhile, the RE520's supercardioid pickup pattern fights stage bleed and rejects off-axis noise to provide maximum gain before feedback — a feature that's great for squeezing a few extra dB out of the stage monitors. The RE520 also gives you a 150Hz bass roll-off tucked just inside the rugged E/V ND-series Memraflex Grille, which is built tough to resist denting and protect your capsule. Treat your stage vocals to a new level of clarity and luxury with the incredibly priced, high-performing Electro-Voice RE520 vocal mic from Sweetwater.
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Highest Rated Reviews
A Substantial Improvement over the RE510/410
A friend bought an RE520 on my recommendation and the advice of an EV mic designer. He has some experience behind his RE520 now. He"s performed with it as the solo artist and as a backup vocalist several times. He loves the mic and really hates going back to the usual suspect. A guy he plays with a lot, who argued with me that "good mics are too expensive" and that he can make the SM58 sound as good as anything was converted by listening to our friend perform. That is pretty amazing in itself.
Last Wednesday, several of us got to experiment with the RE520 at a local open mic and, lucky for me, the guy who usually sets up the system didn"t show up until we were well underway. The owner, first, showed off his new technique on the usual suspects: SM58s. He sounded pretty good as did the system in general, for a change, with the guitar volumes down where they belong and the bottom rolled out so that the system was moderately crisp. Then we hooked up the RE520. Leonard has some fairly pronounced sibilance qualities to his voice and since he insists on staying on-axis with the mic, even at some distance, that was fairly pronounced. Otherwise, his voice was so incredibly natural sounding that you could hardly tell the pa was on.
Then I got my turn on the mic and that whole "sweet, smooth, and natural" thing came to mind immediately. The bar"s monitors are nothing special, but I"d moved the mains (a pair of EV powered units) so that I could hear them from the "stage." I"m not much of a fan of my own voice, but I didn"t find much to complain about. Everything from my loudest to a whisper (moving to keep the volume fairly constant) was just a pleasant surprise. With the combination of the guitar volume being decent and a great mic to sing into, I had as much fun playing as I ever had.
Two other male vocalists and two female vocalists performed on the RE520 that night. A fairly young and original music female performer really worked the mic like a pro. By the end of her 3rd song she sounded like something I should have been recording. The mic totally transformed the venue and the audience.
The high pass response chart on the data sheet isn"t as helpful as I hoped it would be in explaining how the high-pass filters work. I"d rather see a fixed distance with the 3 settings displayed. I"m not sure what moving the mic and changing the filter settings is supposed to tell me, but it seems overly complicated and the technical audience for this kind of information gets dumber every generation. KISS, ya know? Apparently the EV product manager isn't particularly familiar with how microphone data sheets are supposed to be used.
I am really impressed with the feel of the 520. The RE410 I reviewed for a music school several years ago was everything--except robust looking and feeling. The 410 is light and a little cheap feeling. None of that for the RE520. The extra weight makes the mic feel substantial, along the lines of the Sennheiser and Neumann competitors. I know that is a dumb, subjective opinion, but I think consumers feel that way when they are making a comparison of products that they usually think of as commodities. "Feel" is one way to move out of the commodity bracket. The high-pass switch is well done, if hard for someone who doesn"t know its there to find.
