Earthworks SR117 Supercardioid Condenser Vocal Microphone Reviews

I picked this up after Jeff R. recommended it, and it is the most natural sounding mic I've ever used. The highs and lows are smooth and accurate, it just sounds fantastic! It doesn't require a ton of gain and handles loud signals well. Overall I'm incredibly impressed and, I know I've said this before, but I think this is the only mic I'll ever need.

I just received this Earthworks SR117 and tested it out and let me tell you, this mic is fantastic. So much clarity. As others have stated, it will not enhance the voice you put through it but it darn well provides a super clear signal of what goes in, comes right out. Very pleased with this SR117. My Sweetwater rep Brian Loney always delivers!

Someone reviewed this and said the SR117 is like the SR40V's little brother. I would second that as I've used an SR40V before. Well done Earthworks!

So, I'm a drummer, a singer, a live sound engineer, a recording/mixing/mastering engineer, and I have MANY years of experience doing all of these things.

If you want the BEST mic you can get for live vocals and recording in a less than perfect room, spend the money and get an Earthworks SR40V. I have one and they are incredible. If you are a solo or duo acoustic artist there is no better mic to use, period.

However, most of us are not really comfortable using that kind of mic for a live gig because sometimes bad things happen, I totally understand that. So, what do you do? I have found the answer to this dilemma.

The amazing folks at Earthworks, (my neighbors here in New Hampshire), have designed a brilliant option to their OUTSTANDING SR40V. The SR117 is VERY affordable and it REALLY delivers, think of it as the SR40V's little brother. It is solid, has a 2-stage plosive filter system, has the hi-definition style condenser like the SR40V, and it gives you an amazingly accurate signal that puts what you sound like into your speakers or your recordings. This is the most "life like" sounding mic I believe you can buy, (unless you by an SR40V), and it is built to last.

This morning, I replaced the lead singers mic at our church service with an SR117. Only a few people knew I had done this, but at the end of the service I was hearing all kinds of compliments on how good he sounded. The truth was he sounded the same but they all heard him better and assumed he was just singing really well. He was singing the same way he always does, but the people could really hear him clearer and they liked it more. The pastor, who did know what I had done, asked me for the info on the mic so he could look into getting some for the team, (they can't have mine..!).

So, it's my opinion that for $ you really cannot do any better than this mic. Honestly, I'm not going to name drop or put down any other mics, but I believe this mic sounds better than several more expensive condenser mics that I have owned.
If you want a mic that really captures what you sound like and delivers that to a pa system or a recording interface I do not believe you can do any better than this mic without spending at least triple the price. Pick up one of these from Sweetwater, you will not be disappointed.

I love this microphone. I bought it for recording because it was $200 bucks and seemed like a good microphone for a home studio setting. But I decided to use it for my church's worship team and we were sold on them. We are currently looking into buying 4 or 5 of these for the worship team because they sound so smooth and clear. I had congregation members mention that the our lead singer's vocal sounded really clean and clear. The frequency chart shows that it is basically flat. Which to me is really nice because it gives flexibility with eq and the different vocal types we have.
If you are looking for a great condenser microphone for under $600 this is it.

If youre afraid of using condenser mics on stage - this will change your mind.

It has equal rejection to an SM58 from most, if not all, off-axis directions. From some angles, it is superior to the 58 in rejection. On top of this - it retains the Earthworks quality, clarity, and brightness that you desire from an Earthworks product. The prices of an SM58 and the SR117 are so similar that I recommend you pony up the extra $ for this gem of a microphone. It will bring life to your live vocals - and the 58 sounds hollow by comparison. Any fears you have about condensers feeding back on stage does not apply to the SR117. Buy it.

I bought this as a vocal mic, but tried it on guitar amp and percussion and it is phenomenal. Just true to what you hear in the room and easy to mix/edit. A lot of dynamics have boosted frequencies or lack detail, condensers often sound bad close up because of a huge proximity effect, but this does not have that. I use this mic on sources I want to mike very close and sound accurate. Works great for this.

Super smooth and balanced tone! It's an Earthworks. I predict this mic will take over the market! Buy it!

I've used a variety of vocal mics on all sorts of voices. Male, female, various vocal ranges in various roles from solo to lead to backing to near operatic from individual close mic to choir mic of large groups to single mic for a small ensemble all in live reinforcement.

For me, the challenge, besides gain before feedback, has been controlling proximity effects on close mics, and getting a natural sound faithful to the voice in a way that is pleasing and easy to hear all before minor cleanup with EQ. Especially on close mics which capture the head voice and chest voice only through nearness and by way of the mouth. This is always a really close approximation in the end with close mics.

The Earthworks SR117 is in a class of its own at this price point. It is articulate. It captures sparkle without sharpness. It captures everything well. It captures the mids, especially on male voices, without the mud. It captures really clean and tight lows. It does not overemphasize any particular part of the vocal range. It's a dream to EQ. It's a dream to get gain before feedback without phase and other artifacts from monitors and wall reflections. I can't think of any other mic I've used for close and near field vocals that has been this easy to work with.

My next best alternative are the Sennheiser Evolution series e935 and e945 mics. They are very good and have been my go-to mics for close and near field vocal mics. The e935 to tame proximity on really close mics to baritone and bass voices with lots of natural low end and work with voices where the talent lacks good close mic discipline (larger pattern before off axis drop off and coloration). The e945 on tenor and female voices to control gain before feedback. Before the Sennheiser e9x5 mics, I used EV N/D767a mics before they were discontinued and replaced with the EV N/D76. The N/D76 is nowhere near the mic that the N/D767a was. I refurbished my now decades old N/D767a mics with new foam and screens from EV to use when coming up short on Sennheiser e9x5 mics for larger numbers of closed mic talent.

That said, I have now bought four of these SR117s to use as a preferred mic for lead male and female voices, male voices when outnumbered by female voices, and in small ensemble blends of close harmony with single voices on each part (SATB type stuff). The blend without losing distinctive color of each voice is amazing. It's a dream to mix. They have less proximity effect in really close mic to baritone and bass voices than the other preferred vocal mics anywhere near this price range that I've used in the past.

Gain before feedback. The SR117 mic is the only one I've used in this live close mic at anywhere close to this price point that has such a totally consistent polar pattern from 20Hz to 20kHz. Most mics anywhere near this price class have polar patterns that go from super-cardioid to sub-cardioid as the frequency goes down. Especially from lower mids on down. Off axis coloration is more pronounced with other mics compared to the SR117. The SR117 with its total consistency in polar pattern makes getting gain before feedback easier whilst controlling off axis color better. And at this price point too. I don't know how Earthworks does it. But they do.

As a live sound engineer over the past 12 years, I've come across a pretty wide variety of vocal mics. As a musician, I've also had the chance to use most of these microphones myself while singing and performing.

I knew of Earthworks mostly from their stellar reputation as a maker of high quality, extremely accurate microphones. Now, they're certainly not the cheapest microphones out there, so I was coming across many at local bars/coffee shops/venues, and hadn't made the plunge to buy one myself (though 48 months no interest almost got me a couple of times!

When I received an e-mail about the new SR117, watched a quick video, and saw the price tag of $, I didn't hesitate for a second. I got the mic the next day, used it on a live stream that night, and used it at two other solo acoustic gigs this week.

This mic is by far the easiest mic I've ever worked with. Most mics require a little work to get right. A low mid cut, a little bit of a high shelf, etc. Not to mention having to be mindful of mic technique, as most mics respond quite differently based on how hard you're singing, how close you are to the mic, etc.

For this mic, I just started with a modest HPF (Low Cut) at 80Hz). When I put in my in-ear monitors and gained it up, it instantly sounded great. No matter how I moved around or how I sang, it just sounded like.....me.

Maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but I'm currently obsessed with this mic. I think it will work great in any environment: full band, solo acoustic, podcast, live stream. This thing is extremely natural and smooth. I multitrack the audio of my shows, and I've been so happy with the vocal sound each time.

Best purchase decision I've made in a while!

(Bonus Points: This thing comes with a really nice bag, and an extremely sturdy K&M mic clip. I also love the look. No text, no logo, nothing. This mic means business, haha.)

I came out very disappointed in this mic. Earthworks definitely make flagship mics, and was curious to try these out. I bought two over the summer as soon as I found out and was going to use them on a specific artist. I ended up not even using them because one came in earlier than the other and that one was DOA, not an inconvenience because I came with a plan and still had time to get it shipped back to Sweetwater to get my replacement back before I took off. So I get these two mics just kind of testing them out in my studio space and they were okay not bad my expectations probably had me a little underwhelmed.

The artist had just gotten new telefunken m80's so I ended up keeping them in my mic locker, go figure. So anyway, later on during a gig in the fall an artist brought in a beta87 and I told them if they were interested in letting me try out this mic that I still hadn't had a chance to use, which they agreed thankfully. I figured they should be similar in capture. So we end up plugging in and had them in a good spot after soundcheck, minutes before show was about to hit. I went ahead and curiously went re-check the mic in the monitor and thankfully I did because it wasn't getting signal. After about 10 minutes back and forth of switch cables and channels on my snake couldn't get signal back. No worries though I was prepared and brought my second one, that one was passing signal, great! alright lets go! Wait hold up what's that?!?

I was getting ground hum and would get these small clicks from phantom power. Major BLOW because I didn't even get to use them for a gig that last one was my first time plugging anything into it and ALL THREE are useless. Mind you I've taken good care of my equipment, I even have some ribbon mics in the same mic case that I have stashed and those are perfectly fine. These I can't even say definitely how they sounded because they were unreliable and I would think for most of us that have mics would say yes they hopefully sound good but if they can't be dependable then who gives a rats a** how they sound.

It could be a stoke of bad luck, but I have three unfortunate examples of showing just an underwhelming product. I haven't even contacted earthworks nor Sweetwater with my experience, and usually dont like to write negative or bad reviews. But I had some time here to finally vent my frustration and at the time everyone had 5 star reviews so I needed to bring down the party since I'm out $ on those mics and are just sitting in my closet not even getting oxidation but being useless and have no plan to even repair them.

Stay away from Earthworks Audio products! Expensive junk. Sure, the microphones sound decent until they just go dead for no reason (on the 3-4th use), and you have to fight for over a month to get any kind of warranty resolution. And even then, they don't bother to offer to pay for the shipping to them even after they determine that the issue was that a $ microphone never should have left the factory in the first place.

In fact, they determined that they were going to send me a different microphone with different specs that used to be cheaper than the one I sent in until they discontinued the one i sent in and jacked the price up on the one that THEY determined would be a good replacement.

Ultimately they took no responsibility for my time down, my time dealing with this massive headache (which could have all been avoided had they taken the time to QC a junk $ microphone), shipping costs, or even making sure I was satisfied with the outcome. They made sure to clearly state that my warranty time was not at all extended with this new microphone that is supposed to replace the junk one they sent me the first time.

Earthworks may have made some good mics in the past. I dont know. What I do know, is that I would not trust them any further than I could throw them today. And I certainly wouldn't trust their microphones on a stage where you need to depend on the microphone for people to hear you.