The SM58 has been the world’s most-used live vocal mic for ~50 years for a reason. Indestructible (you’ve seen the YouTube videos of people running them over with cars), cheap, sounds great on any voice, plugs into any of our speakers via XLR.
Best for: toasts, karaoke, backup, anywhere a wireless mic is overkill or you don’t trust the wireless mic to not fail.
When to spend more
The cable is the whole argument. Five metres is fine at a table and useless at a ceremony:
- The speaker moves around, or the crowd is spread out — the Sennheiser EW-D wireless handheld is the same job without the tether: digital, ~100m range, 8 hours on AA batteries.
- A wedding ceremony, a speech, or anyone who needs both hands — the Sennheiser EW-D ME 2 lavalier clips to a lapel and gets out of the way. Nobody wants to hold an SM58 while exchanging vows.
- You’re filming it — the Rode Wireless GO II records onto the transmitters themselves, so the audio survives even if the receiver drops out. That’s a camera problem, not a PA problem, and the SM58 doesn’t solve it.
Plenty of bookings take an SM58 alongside a wireless mic anyway. It costs almost nothing, it plugs into any XLR input on a speaker, and it works when the batteries in the other one don’t.
What’s in the rental
- SM58 + 5m XLR cable
- Standard mic clip
- 3-5 day lead time
