Shure SM48 Review: The Narrowest Range in the Set

The Shure SM48 publishes 55 Hz to 14 kHz, but nothing else here stops at 14. Of the 27 dynamic microphones with a published range, every other one reaches 15 kHz or higher. At the bottom only the PGA48 starts later, at 70 Hz. On paper, though, this is the narrowest microphone in the set.

$69 is the other number, and it makes the first one read differently. Two dynamics here cost less. That price now comes with a caveat, and it has grown since. The dealer marks the SM48-LC no longer available and carries no SM48S either, and Shure's taken the model off its own storefront. The manufacturer's product address for it no longer serves a product page at all. It redirects into the documentation, and the SM48-LC address returns a 404. Every figure below still describes the microphone. What's changed is where one can be bought. Shure's own guide explains the range rather than apologising for it. The response is shaped for a voice, with a presence rise in the mid-range and a deliberate roll-off at the bottom to control proximity effect.

55 Hz to 14 kHz, and what shapes it

The top end stops where sibilance lives

So fourteen kilohertz is a decision, not a limit reached by accident. Shure lists the response as tailored for vocals, and a vocal microphone that stops at 14 kHz has given up the octave where cymbal wash and sibilance sit and kept everything a voice actually produces. The same sheet names the low end as shaped rather than extended, and it's a roll-off to control proximity effect, which is the swell at the bottom that arrives once a mouth is within a few centimetres of a cardioid capsule. That figure is therefore not the point where the microphone runs out. It's the point where Shure stopped counting a slope it put there.

Neither end carries a tolerance, so neither number can be set beside a rival's, since a Yamaha HS5 publishes one limit at −10 dB and another at −3 dB, and the two describe the same speaker in different figures. What Shure prints instead is a response curve, which shows the shape of the roll-off without putting a bound on where it ends.

1.3 mV/Pa, third lowest of seventeen

Shure publishes −57.5 dBV/Pa at 1 kHz, open circuit, which converts to 1.3 mV/Pa. Against the 17 dynamics whose figures can be normalised, only the SM7B at 1.12 and the 55SH at 1.26 come out quieter, and the middle figure is 1.8.

But a quiet capsule at $69 lands differently from a quiet capsule at $439. Both ask the preamp for more gain. But only one of them is likely to be plugged into a preamp that has it to spare. On a small mixer at the back of a hall, 1.3 mV/Pa means the gain knob goes further round than it would with a hotter handheld, and whatever noise that mixer has comes up with it.

What Shure adds and the shop leaves out

And the B&H listing carries the pattern, the element type, the range, the connector and the thread. But it doesn't give a sensitivity, an impedance or a maximum SPL. Eight retail pages in this set of 28 dynamics leave sensitivity out altogether, and this is one of the eight.

But Shure fills in two of the three. Sensitivity is above, and output impedance reads 150 Ω on the EIA rating with 270 Ω actual. That's the older way of quoting it, and it means an ordinary low-impedance source that any microphone input handles. There's no maximum SPL on either page. A moving-coil capsule doesn't have an amplifier stage to overload, so the omission costs little here, but it still leaves this model out of that column.

The same gap turns up on the Beta 57A, where the shop prints no output figure either. The pattern is worth naming. On Shure's cheaper and mid-range handhelds the retail page carries the marketing specification and the manufacturer carries the measurement.

A pop filter inside the grille

A steel mesh grille over a steel handle, with the pop filter built in behind the mesh rather than sold as a foam sleeve. Shure lists a shock-mounted cartridge as well, which is the mount that keeps handling noise out of the signal.

Net weight is 0.37 kg by Shure's sheet. The shop doesn't print a weight at all, so this figure has no shop number to disagree with, unlike the two Shure models where the pages differ by thirty grams and three grams.

Spare parts have their own numbers. The cartridge is the R136 and the grille is the RK248G. And the box holds a stand adapter and a zip case. On the optional list, the A58WS foam windscreen fits every larger Shure ball-type handheld.

SM48 or SM48S: one switch

Shure documents both models in one guide, headed "SM48 /SM48S", and the difference is a single line of the feature list. The SM48S has a lockable On/Off switch and the SM48 has none.

Everything else is identical, from the capsule and the range to the sensitivity and the body. A lockable switch matters in exactly one situation, which is a venue where somebody who isn't the engineer will otherwise switch a microphone off mid-set.

Thirty-three ratings, none below four stars

Twenty-six fives and seven fours, averaging 4.8 across every rating on the card. An empty bottom half at that many samples says more than it does at twelve, though less than it would at three hundred.

What it mostly says is that a $69 microphone with no electronics and nothing to configure isn't easy to be disappointed by. The complaints that sink cheap gear are about batteries, apps, drivers and connectors that fail, but this device has none of those parts.

Two prices left in the markup

So both survivors of this price bracket are documents rather than purchases. The dealer's structured data still carries $69.00 for the SM48, with the availability field beside it reading discontinued, which is the pattern that puts a dead model into a live price table. Its cheaper stablemate is in exactly the same state, and three other entries in this collection now sit below them: a live Behringer at $19.90 and two more dead listings, a Shure PGA48 at $54.00 and a HyperX SoloCast at $59.99.

And that's worth stating before any ranking below is read. A comparison that sorts by price now has its two lowest rows occupied by microphones that can't be bought new, which pushes every living model up two places for no reason a buyer would recognise.

$69 in a field with a $169 middle

Two dynamics here cost less than the SM48. A Behringer sits at $19.90 with three published figures and a unit missing from one of them, and the PGA48 from the same maker at $54. The median across all 28 sits at $169, and the SM58 at $109 is the next step inside the same line.

Forty dollars separates the two, and the sheets differ in three places. The SM58 reaches 15 kHz instead of 14, publishes off-axis attenuation figures the SM48 doesn't, and puts out 1.59 mV/Pa against 1.3. Whether that's worth $40 depends on which of the three a buyer can use, and only the first two are things a specification can settle.

The questions the specification already answers

Four entries on the sheet settle what a $69 handheld raises. Those are the range, the variant, the use and the price. And none of the four needs an opinion on top.

What is the SM48's frequency response?

55 Hz to 14 kHz, and no tolerance is stated for either end. Nothing else in this set of 27 published ranges is narrower, though the description Shure gives is a response tailored for vocals rather than a boundary the capsule ran into.

What is the difference between the SM48 and the SM48S?

A lockable On/Off switch, which the SM48S has and the SM48 doesn't. Shure publishes one guide for both and lists no other difference.

Is the SM48 good for recording?

And Shure names studio recording alongside sound reinforcement and broadcast. The specification supports a close voice, with a cardioid pattern, a built-in pop filter and a response with the proximity build-up already trimmed. But what it gives up is the top octave and output level.

What does a Shure SM48 cost?

$69.00 at B&H. That's $40 below the SM58 and $15 above the PGA48, both from the same maker.

Where a $69 SM48 belongs

So a close voice into a small mixer is the case the numbers describe. The pop filter is already inside the grille, the proximity roll-off is already in the response, but there's nothing on the body to set wrong because there's nothing on it at all.

But an instrument or a room is where it stops fitting. A range that ends at 14 kHz was shaped around a voice, but putting it on a cymbal or an acoustic guitar asks for the octave Shure deliberately left out. The 1.3 mV/Pa output is the second constraint. A quiet source at any distance needs gain this microphone will make the preamp work for.

Price and specifications

Sources

1. Shure SM48-LC Vocal Microphone, product listing at B&H Photo Video: price, rating count and its star distribution.
2. The product markup on that same listing: polar pattern, element type, frequency range, connector and thread, and the absence of any sensitivity, impedance or maximum SPL field.
3. SM48 and SM48S user guide at Shure: sensitivity, output impedance, net weight, the tailored vocal response and its proximity roll-off, the built-in pop filter, the shock-mounted cartridge, the lockable switch on the SM48S, and the R136 and RK248G part numbers.
4. Medians and positions come from listings of 200 audio products collected the same way. How those are converted and compared.

The shop figures above date from 20 August 2026, and a price moves faster than anything else here.

What we did not do

This microphone has never been in our hands. Every figure above is Shure's or its dealer's, and what we add is the ranking: which of the dynamics here publish the same specification, and where this one falls among them.