MicTested
RE20 vs SM7B: $10 and 2.5 dB Apart
MicTested
Ten dollars separate the prices and 2.5 decibels separate the outputs: $449.00 against $439.00, 1.5 mV/Pa against 1.12. Both sensitivity figures are open-circuit voltage at the same test frequency. And that shared condition is rarer than it sounds, since most pairs on this site can't be lined up this precisely.
Neither microphone is the safer choice, but they fail differently. Take the Electro-Voice if the mouth moves. Variable-D is a mechanical answer to the proximity effect, and it doesn't care whether anyone remembers a switch. Take the Shure if the voice sits still and the chain wants shaping at the source, where its bass rolloff and presence boost do in hardware what the Electro-Voice leaves to the desk.
Side by side
| Electro-Voice RE20 | Shure SM7B | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $449.00 | $439.00 |
| Type | Dynamic, cardioid, end address | Dynamic (moving coil), cardioid, end address |
| Sensitivity | 1.5 mV/Pa, open circuit at 1 kHz | −59 dBV/Pa, open circuit at 1 kHz (1.12 mV/Pa) |
| Frequency response | 45 Hz to 18 kHz, no tolerance stated | 50 Hz to 20 kHz, no tolerance stated |
| Max SPL | not published | not published |
| Output impedance | 150 Ω balanced | 150 Ω |
| Power | None required | None required |
| Controls | Mid-bass tone-shaping switch | Bass rolloff, presence boost |
| Hum pickup | −130 dBm at 60 Hz in a 1 mOe field | 11 dB at 60 Hz, equivalent SPL per mOe |
| Weight | 737 g | 764 g |
| Mount | 81715 stand clamp in the box | Captive yoke, 5/8"-27 |
| Owner rating | 4.8 from 62 | 4.8 from 151 |
Every acoustic row comes from the two manufacturers, prices and ratings from the shop listings.
2.5 decibels, and why this pair can be compared at all
Electro-Voice states 1.5 mV/pascal at 1 kHz, open circuit. Shure states −59 dBV/Pa at 1 kHz, open circuit, and prints the conversion as 1.12 mV. Same quantity, same frequency, same loading condition, so the difference between them is a real 2.5 decibels rather than an artefact of two measuring methods.
But that's not the usual situation here. Of the microphones logged here most publish either a figure with no stated reference or no figure at all, but a value without its measurement condition can't enter a ranking. And this pair is one of the few that can.
Among their own kind both sit low. The SM7B is the quietest of the 17 dynamics whose output this site can convert to millivolts, where the median is 1.8. At 1.5 the RE20 would sit second from the bottom, still below that median, and both stay far under the 1.59 mV/Pa of a plain SM58. Two broadcast microphones at $440 are quieter than a stage handheld at a quarter of the money, and that's the class working as intended: output was traded for what the capsule refuses to hear.
The figure the shop does not carry
The sensitivity of the Electro-Voice isn't on its product page and not in the shop's markup. Electro-Voice prints three numbers on the web page — element type, polar pattern and 45 Hz to 18,000 Hz — and everything else lives in a two-page engineering data sheet reachable only after the downloads block is opened. Impedance, hum pickup, dimensions, the 81715 stand clamp and the sensitivity are all in there. Our own row of 17 dynamics is built from shop markup, and the RE20 is absent from it for exactly this reason: the number exists and the shop never saw it. But any comparison built the usual way will print "not published" beside this microphone, and it'll be wrong.
Yet Shure does the opposite with the same information. Its user guide carries the full table on the page, and the same guide states outright that the SM7B needs a preamp with more than 60 dB of gain, which is a maker naming the cost of its own design. The arithmetic of a spoken voice puts the SM7B's working figure nearer 70, and 2.5 dB of extra output moves the RE20 barely off that mark.
Variable-D against two switches
Both microphones have to deal with the proximity effect, the low-end swell a mouth creates as it closes on a cardioid capsule, and they answer it in opposite places. The Electro-Voice answers it in the capsule, where Variable-D admits low frequencies through ports set back along the body, so the rise never reaches the diaphragm at full strength. The Shure answers it at the switch panel, with a bass rolloff a screwdriver turns on.
So one correction is automatic, and the other is a decision. A voice that leans in and out of a fixed microphone gets an even bottom end from the Electro-Voice without anyone touching anything, while the same voice on the Shure gets whatever the switch was left at. How fine that decision can be is a matter of money: Sennheiser's MD 441-U puts five positions on the same switch for $1,249 instead of two. Against that, a switch can be turned off, and the Electro-Voice's port design is always doing its work whether or not the recording wants it.
Shure does own a mechanical answer, just not in this model: the KSM8's second diaphragm cancels the same build-up inside a handheld. Two makers, two different pieces of metalwork, one physical problem.
Two hum figures that cannot be lined up
Both sheets publish a hum-pickup number, though the two can't be compared. Electro-Voice gives −130 dBm in a one-millioersted field at 60 Hz. Shure gives 11 dB at 60 Hz as an equivalent sound pressure level per millioersted. One is an absolute power level, the other a level referred to acoustic pressure, but there isn't a conversion between them without knowing what the second is referenced to.
So the honest reading is qualitative and stops there. And both makers built a humbucking coil, and both thought the result worth printing. Which of the two rejects a lighting dimmer better isn't a question either sheet answers.
The ratings: 62 against 151
Both average 4.8, and the shapes underneath differ in a way the average hides. Four of the RE20's 62 ratings sit at three stars and none below; four of the SM7B's 151 sit at three or lower, two of them at one and two stars. In proportion that's 6.5% against 2.6%, but against sample sizes of 62 and 151 neither figure separates the two microphones. The counts settle one thing only, and it's exposure: two and a half times as many people have rated the Shure, on a pair of models of roughly the same age and price.
Which one to buy
The Electro-Voice for a voice that moves, an untreated announcer's desk, and anyone who would rather the microphone handled the proximity effect than the operator. It also arrives 2.5 dB louder, which is 2.5 dB the preamp is spared.
The Shure for a fixed position where the two switches will be set once and left, and for a chain where its captive yoke and the foam windscreen are what the desk was built around. Its own sheet is the more complete document of the two, and there's nothing in a download that isn't already on the page.
Neither is the answer if the room's quiet and the budget is the constraint. A RODE NT1 puts out some 27 dB more than either of these, at a third of the price, but it wants quiet walls in exchange.
Sources
- Electro-Voice RE20 engineering data sheet: sensitivity, impedance, hum pickup, weight, dimensions and the included stand clamp.
- The RE20 product page at Electro-Voice: the model is current, and the three figures the page itself carries.
- Shure's SM7B user guide: type, frequency response, impedance, sensitivity, hum pickup, weight and the stated gain requirement.
- Shure's SM7B product page: the model is current and carries a best-seller mark.
- B&H Photo Video listings for both microphones: prices, rating counts and the star distributions above.
- Medians, row sizes and positions come from listings of 200 audio products collected the same way. How those are converted and compared.
Prices and owner ratings on this page were read at the shop on 20 August 2026.
What we did not doNeither microphone has been in our hands. Every figure above is what the two makers and the shop publish, and where a sheet is silent the table says so rather than filling the gap with an estimate.
