Shure SM59
A cardioid dynamic that Shure built for the people who talk for a living — and the studio engineers who quietly borrowed it.
Overview
The SM59 weighs 215 grams — under eight ounces — and it wears a champagne finish that Shure's own catalog copy describes as "slim" and "elegant," a deliberate break from the beer-can bulk of the microphones it was meant to replace. That much is documented. What the surviving literature does not pin down is a production year, an original price, or a clean model history, so treat the SM59 as a microphone known mostly through its catalog description and the engineers who used it rather than through a tidy timeline.
The design brief is clear from Shure's general-purpose catalog: a cardioid dynamic with a wide, ultra-flat response and a controlled low-frequency rolloff, tuned for clean, natural voice and instrument pickup. The cardioid pattern is described in the catalog as "virtually textbook-perfect," which is the kind of claim every manufacturer makes — but the practical payoff Shure cites is real enough: feedback rejection and reduced pickup of background noise. The frequency response is listed as 50 to 15,000 Hz, impedance 150 ohms, open-circuit output 0.07 mV. Those numbers put it in the same functional territory as the general-purpose dynamics of its era, not a specialty studio condenser.
Where the SM59 gets interesting is in the details Shure engineered into the body. A patented mechano-pneumatic shock mount isolates the cartridge from rumble and mechanically transmitted noise whether the mic sits on a stand or is handheld. An integral windscreen handles pops. A built-in humbucking coil suppresses electromagnetic interference — Shure specifically calls out the strong RF fields near TV studios. The catalog positions the mic for permanent installation in legislative chambers, courtrooms, and large meeting rooms, where handling noise and hum are the enemies. That is not marketing fluff; it is a coherent design story, and it explains why the SM59 turns up in broadcast and institutional settings rather than on rock stages.
The SM59's reputation was built partly on being the SM57 without the built-in equalizer. In a Broadcast Programming & Production interview, a studio sound engineer (identified in the transcript as "DW") explains the switch: "Now I've switched to an SM59, which is the same mike without the built-in equalizer." Asked whether the missing EQ is a hindrance, the engineer says no — the board handles it, and the SM59 looks better besides. The same engineer describes the earlier equalizer-equipped mic as looking "like a big beer can" and notes that humidity would corrode the equalizer section unless the mic was packed away nightly, cutting the signal out until the connectors were cleaned. The SM59, by contrast, is praised for its mid-range capacity and its usefulness on voice, and the engineer reports seeing the whole Lawrence Welk Show running on SM59s after word got around.
That same interview captures the mic's limits honestly. The engineer notes the SM59 — like any cardioid — is susceptible to pops depending on the performer's angle, and that the earlier omni he used was oddly pop-prone too. He also describes using four SM59s on the brass section and finding them good on voice thanks to their mid-range character. This is not a mic that flatters everything; it is a mic that does a specific job — clean, natural speech and instrument pickup with minimal handling noise — and does it without drama.
Shure's own catalog copy draws the contrast with its sibling directly: in a Studio Sound (June 1978, p.33) advertisement, the SM59 is characterized as "mellow, smooth, silent" against the SM58's "crisp, bright, abuse proof." That is advertising, not an independent verdict, but it is a useful orientation — the SM59 was sold as the refined, low-noise choice for permanent installation and broadcast, not the road-warrior vocal mic. The same ad copy appears again in a 1978 Studio Sound placement and in a 1984 Recording Engineer piece pitching the SM line's ruggedness across session work.
By the early 1980s, Shure was running a recurring Sound and Communication advertisement (appearing in the January, April, and December 1983 issues) that framed the SM59 for people who "speak for a living" — the wide-range, ultra-flat response preventing boominess or shrillness that complicates room acoustics, the integral windscreen reducing pop, and the champagne finish making it a natural for permanent installation. The pitch is squarely at legislative chambers, courtrooms, and large meeting rooms. Whether that campaign reflects the mic's actual market or just Shure's ambitions for it is hard to say from the ads alone, but the institutional positioning is consistent across the catalog and the trade press.
For a collector, the SM59 is a curious piece. It is not the SM58 or SM57, and it does not command their prices or their ubiquity, but it is a genuine Shure dynamic with a documented design philosophy and a documented place in broadcast history. The catalog lists it as available as the SM59-CN with a C25F cable and as the SM59 LC without cable, and Shure sold dedicated accessories for it — the A53M shock mount and the A57D champagne swivel adapter are both specified for the SM59 in the accessory listings. Those accessories are period-correct and worth seeking out if a buyer wants a complete example. Known failure modes and current market values are not documented in the available sources, so a buyer should inspect the shock mount and the windscreen closely and treat any claims about collectibility with caution.
The honest summary: the SM59 is a well-engineered cardioid dynamic with a specific institutional brief, a documented broadcast pedigree, and a design that prioritized low handling noise and hum rejection over the presence peak that made its siblings famous. It is not a secret weapon, and it is not a museum piece — it is a working microphone that did a job well and still does it.
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