After more than 70 years in production, Shure’s (shure.com) Unidyne 55 Series is surely the longest-running product in audio history. The story begins in 1937 with Shure engineer Benjamin Bauer looking for a single-capsule approach to create a unidirectional microphone.

This mic both looks great and sounds great. And let's be honest; both are very important. I'm using this mic for both spoken word performances and the vocalist in the band I play with and I love it for both occasions.

It is everything I hoped it would be. It is slightly sensitive to pops (which I expected from reading other reviews). Great feedback rejection thanks to the supercardioid polar pattern. Nice sounding microphone (it's basically the time-tested Beta 58 capsule inside) with a beautiful classic look.

For my Oldies show that I'm doing once a month, I bought this Super 55 mic, mainly because of its retro look, and I received it yesterday. It really does look great and 'oldish', but I'm also very pleased with the sound.

• +

  Ideal and iconic for Oldies gigs, when an authentic look is desired. Sounds great too.

• -

  So far I haven't found any negative aspects. Perhaps the missing On/Off switch?

I have been playing live for over 20 years now always dragging my Shure sm58 from home studio to practice to gigs. I always was happy with the sound of the 58 but also always felt like I had to really work hard to get where I wanted to be.