Ron wrote - While watching the video I noticed that your mic has a black
handle where the switch is. I don't recall ever seeing that before...
PE was Shure's abbreviation for Professional Entertainer. There were PE
versions of several other Shure mic's as well. Another PE variant of the
545 was labeled PE54. The only difference is that the PE's had some
small
part done in black instead of silver. As far as I've been able to
determine
all the innards are the same. I think the PE variants were mostly just
a
marketing thing. There was also a PE45, don't confuse it with the PE54,
the 45 has a different capsule and doesn't belong to the 545 family of
mic's.
On the older 545's the black area below the capsule vent was made of
metal,
in later versions that part is made of plastic, probably the same Armor
Dur plastic that Shure has used in several other mic's. Many players
swear
that the older metal ones sound better. Regardless of whether or not
they
sound different, the plastic ones can break if hit or dropped, over the
years I've seen several with cracks or even jagged holes. The metal ones
are
more like a Shure SM57 in that regard... pretty much bulletproof.
Butter seemed to prefer the heavier pistol grip version over the straight
'stick' or 'wand' models. Not sure if it was because of how they felt in
his hands or if it was for how they looked. Maybe he thought the pistol
grips sounded better but there are no sonic differences that I can
identify,
the capsules were the same. Perhaps it worked better for throwing at the
knucklehead who was 'gussing' him out in the audience?
Christopher Richards
Twin Tone Harmonica Microphones
Harmonica Planet .com