Telefunken M 80 Handheld Vocal Microphone

Best mic out there. "Drops the mic"

Had this mic a few weeks tried it on snare, incredible sound. I have 57's and yes they rock BUT!This thing... has some nice sound. first opinion was it sounds very controlled, smooth, has a wonderful natural EQ/color. it makes a cheap snare sound expensive and my DW Collectors snare outstanding! put it through a nice pre... once again Amazing. after 30+ years of regional touring and local gigs i would have put 4 stars, but then today i needed the studio for rehearsal. thought id try the M80 as my lead vocal so ran it through my DAW to (powered pa monitor) with little EQ, slight Verb/drop of Delay. kick off a groove and start warming up with vocals before people arive. WOW!!! I never heard my voice this way, out of all the purchases i'v made over the years this has to be one of the best mics a singer or studio owner can have under $500. was going to get another LCD for my studio, one more of these will do nicely! Thanx Telefunken! 5 star all the way...click "add to cart" you wont be disappointed!

After using a very faithful Sure Beta 87A for nine years, it suddenly crapped out on me and I needed to get a new mic. After shopping around and reading reviews, I thought I'd drop some dough and give the Telefunken M80 a try. Wow! After playing my first gig with it, the sound person asked what kind of mic I was using. It's very responsive and produces a wonderful reproduction of my voice. I give this microphone 5 stars. I hope this one lasts a long time.

I bought this to have a high-end, handheld, dynamic vocal mic. I have an SM-58 to which I compared it carefully on male vocals. The two mics sound similar to me, except the M80 has more high frequency response. If I turned up the shelving EQ at about 5KHz, the SM-58 sounded practically the same.I was turned on by the prospect of a quality, USA made dynamic vocal mic, even if the price was high (for what it is). Then I heard about the M16 scandal. In short, Telefunken was selling a re-branded, Chinese mic for more than 500% mark-up. Search for: "Telefunken M16 and Apex 460 Comparison." While the company has taken steps to make amends, this scandal revealed more than just a lack of integrity on their part. It also revealed the kind of foolish consumerism on the part of customers like myself. We're willing to pay to believe that we're getting something better than we really are or than we really know.I tried some other handheld, dynamic, vocal mics and compared them to the M80. This included an Audix OM2, and a Sennheiser e945. These are a hypercardioid and a super cardioid respectively. The M80 is probably a cardioid, although Telefunken's website indicates "super cardioid" in at least one place for the M80. I think it's just a cardioid, although there's truly a wide variety of polar patterns between cardioid and hypercardioid. The M80 doesn't seem any tighter than my SM-58, but the e945 doesn't seem much tighter either. The OM2 is noticeably tighter, but probably nowhere near as tight as an OM7.The M80 has more gain than my SM-58 or the OM2, and a similar level to the e945 which appeared nearly 2dB higher than the Shure and Audix. Because of this, comparing the tendency to feedback has to consider the difference in gain. The M80 was more prone to feedback than the lower gain mics, but compensating for the gain, it seemed similar to the other mics. The OM2 might have been the least prone to feedback from the side owing to its tighter pattern.I didn't find any problems with the M80, and the fit and finish on it is very nice quality. But the e945 sounds much clearer and better than the M80. With the M80, it really wasn't apparent what I was getting for the price that's nearly triple the more modest dynamic mics. Personally, I would choose the OM2 over the M80. With the e945, the difference was much more obvious. I have a lot of doubt the difference is worth the price, but with the M80, I could barely perceive that there was any difference.My advice would be not to buy a Telefunken based on the name or logo, but to honestly compare it to similar mics. It should be compared to a Sennheiser e935, and a Shure Beta 58A in particular. Although I included a wider variety of mics in my own comparison, I got enough information that I would personally not consider a M80 or M81 any further. I would sooner use an Electro Voice N767. There are several mics under a hundred dollars that are better than the M80.

Totally different sound than the SM 58's and Sennheiser's I've used in the past. Bright, articulate and responsive. Took a while to get used too, but I'mvery happy with the purchase.

This mic didn't work well with my voice.I had much better sound with the Audio Technica ae6100 mic.The Telefunken just had too much top end for me. Only way to use it would be with a de-esser and some eq.I think if you ran a de-esser on the mic and eq'd the top end you could get a good sound but, I wanted a mic that sounded good with my voice right out of the box.

Mic is great, but missing the mic clip. Was told it didn't come with the microphone, but I know better. $250 dollars you'd think it would come complete!

I am primarily a jazz vocalist and I have (imho) 2 great condenser mics in my home studio - the Rode NTA-1 and Rode NTK. I have been looking for a hand-held dynamic mic with similar sonic qualities and the M80 is the closest I have found. Even though I am obviously a Rode fan (yes, I have the M1), I love the M80's beautiful warm tone and eq that makes my voice sound full and sultry. The SM58 sounds "tinny" compared to the M80, but then the M80 is over 2.5x the cost of the SM58 so it is an unfair comparison. In conclusion, I think the M80 is an amazing mic and if you are willing to spend a little extra money, well worth it.