The world is awash in good dynamic vocal mics. If you take your standards down a notch and include the knockoffs and almost knockoffs coming out of China, then you have a veritable flood on your hands. While most of the new wired dynamic mics coming out from the major mic players over the past few years have been “budget” versions or MIpriced versions of their “big boys,” Beyer has taken a different tack and actually put out a new pro-grade dynamic that is worth a peek.

The Gear

If you have seen the Beyer TG-X 80 just put a nickel-colored head on it and ditch the spaceagey red rubber ring and you have a pretty good idea of what the Opus 89 looks like. And looks are not all that it shares with the TG-X 80 as the twoóat least on paperósport very similar performance specs and the same weight and size with a different color scheme. The big difference is that Beyer made this more of a vocal mic, rolling off the response below 35 Hz which helps clear the mud. Like any hypercardiod mic the polar response shows a pretty big lobe at 180° from the front—something to keep in mind when placing monitors.

With a presence bump between about 5K and 12K, the Opus 89 boasts some of the highend clarity found in good live condenser mics. The mic ships with a clip that fits and a nylon carrying bag. While it shares some specs with the TG-X 80, to my mind at least, the Opus 89 is just a whole lot nicer looking.

The Gigs

We used this on a four piece rock band in a small, loud club. We placed a pair of the Opus 89s on two male singers—one a principle vocalist and the other doing mostly backups and just a few leads. Despite the volume onstage, the tight pattern kept feedback from being a problem (nary a squeal all night long). One of the mics was plugged into a channel that had been used for a condenser vocal mic the night before, and it sounded good out of the gate with the previous EQ settings still dialed in.

Finally, gig over and band packed up, it was time for the drop test. Five feet straight down to concrete. The grill dented pretty significantly leaving the mic looking lopsided at the impact point, but everything still worked fine.

[Post Script: I never do this, but I just have to make a late addition to this one. After writing the review, I used the beyer mics again— this time in a rehearsal situation without the pressure of a live gig, and where I was really able to listen and compare. We don’t do headto- head shootouts in FOH, but I will say that I used five vocal mics with this band—the two beyers and a trio of the mid-line condensers the band normally uses. Those condensers have always beat out a dynamic on the same stage. But the beyers—the dynamics—absolutely smoked the condensers. Hotter output, more detailed high-end, better intelligibility—all of the things we usually depend on a condenser to provide. The vocalists who used the beyers asked if they could use them all the time. These things rock. -Ed]

By Bill Evans - Front of House

Magazine, USA, September 2006