Shure SM58-CN
The cable-included version of the mic that has outlived nearly everything else on the stage.
Overview
Pick one up and the first thing that registers is the weight — 298 grams, just over ten and a half ounces, sitting in the hand with a balance that Shure's own catalog copy describes as unusually comfortable for hand-held work. The SM58-CN is the variant that ships with a cable: a 7.6-metre (25-foot) two-conductor shielded Triple-Flex run, terminated with a three-socket professional audio connector at the microphone end and a three-pin connector at the equipment end. Buy the SM58-LC instead and you get the same microphone with no cable at all. That is the entire difference between the two model numbers.
The capsule behind the spherical grille is a unidirectional dynamic with a cardioid pattern and a rated impedance of 150 ohms. Shure's literature puts the frequency response at 50 to 15,000 Hz, and the shape of that curve is the whole point: a deliberate presence peak in the upper midrange for intelligibility, paired with a fixed low-frequency rolloff so that close-miking doesn't turn the low end to mud. The built-in spherical windscreen handles pops, breath noise, and wind, and the uniform cardioid pickup keeps off-axis coloration down while rejecting enough surrounding noise to allow higher gain before feedback. Open-circuit output is quoted at 0.08 mV (-81.5 dB, 0 dB = 1 V/µbar) into 38 ohms and 0.18 mV (-75.0 dB) into 150 ohms.
Physically it measures 162 mm long by 51 mm in diameter — a 6⅜ by 2 inch cylinder that Shure finished in non-glare gray specifically for on-camera appearance. Supplied accessories are a swivel adapter and a vinyl storage bag. The catalog copy is blunt about the durability claim: the microphone is built to survive a six-foot drop onto a hardwood floor without adverse effects, and the same document notes it is "often imitated in appearance, but never duplicated in performance, ruggedness, or reliability." That is marketing language, and it should be read as such — but it is marketing language that the company has been willing to repeat for decades, which is its own kind of evidence.
Pricing in the period trade press tells the story of a working tool rather than a collector's object. A dealer listing in Recording Engineer advertised the SM58CN at $98.00, with the SM57CN alongside it at $76.00 — a two-dollar premium over a second listing in the same publication that put the SM58CN at $91.00, which is what street pricing on a high-volume item looks like. By the 1990s Shure was running mail-in rebates on the SM58 and SM57 through EQ (October 1994, p.15), and the rebate cycle never really stopped: EQ (December 2008, p.83) and EQ (March 2009, p.19) carried the "Nine Lives Included" campaign offering $10 back on the SM58-CN, SM58-LC, and SM58S, while Mix (October 2012, p.9) ran the same $10 offer on the SM58-CN and SM58-LC. A microphone that needs promotional discounting for twenty straight years is a microphone that is still selling in enormous numbers.
What the SM58-CN is not is a vintage curiosity. It is the rare piece of audio gear that never left production long enough to become collectible in the usual sense — the used market is deep, the parts are common, and the swivel adapter and vinyl bag turn up in drawers everywhere. Buyers after a period-correct example should look for the earlier gray-bodied units with the original packaging; buyers after a microphone to actually use should simply buy one, because the design has not needed to change.
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