white garnet
There is a lot to it. i know there was some discussion earlier about focusing on the space.
But once that is ironed out, it's a good idea to look at the requirements. do you want to talk right into it? Is a pop filter a consideration? Does it have to weigh under 2lbs 1lb? Does it have to look a certain way (unfortunately this can be a factor)
plain vessel
What do you mainly plan to use it for?
ashen crest
SE Dynacaster goes for $289 USD
plain vessel
SM7B is on sale for $359 at multiple places right now.
white garnet
Although people have all kinds of intense opinions regarding the SM7b, it is a perfectly good microphone. It does definitely have a specific use case.
If you are not going to use EQ it is going to be a problem.
The problem is that it is very quiet. This is on purpose. You are supposed to use it right on the front. almost touching the foam. If you are going to be six inches away, you will be wasting the point of it, and introducing an even worse problem. You will need a stupendous amount of gain, and have the electronic noise from that combined with the room noise the same as any cardioid six inches away. The SM7b is not intended to be used 6 inches away, where it is at it's absolute worst.
This leads to the EQ part. It is assumed that you are a professional using this mic, and assumed you are going to correct the proximity effect to get an excellent sound. If you do not, you'll be right up on it and get the same muddy garbage sound you would with any other flat bottom dynamic right in someone's face.
There is peer pressure to use it because others do. Use it for it's technical situation instead. Many podcasters are just hoping the use of a mics they have seen will give them some magical powers, good sound by buying something, or peer pressure.
This is dangerous and misleading.
But there is nothing wrong with the mic.
It should be used mostly where rooms sound bad, and a normal microphone does not work.
Normal microphones do sound better in better sounding rooms. There is a disadvantage being that close. Mouth sounds are intensely magnified and those freak some of the audience out, and sound is just better from three inches away, where you are not "zoomed in" to a part of someone's mouth and sometimes not another.
The SM7 is extremely similar, and was a famous microphone for horns, kick drum and vocals in recording studios. The SM7b rides on some if this reputation.
$300 is a pretty good amount of money. If you are treating a room significantly and singing, an SM7 would work, but there are tons of excellent other options.
There are more open and clean sounding dynamics like the Sennhesier e945, with a much more open sound without being harsh. Just outstanding. EV ND96 is another example. The old N/D EVs sound rich and satisfying as well.
sE V7 also.
Any good sounding LDC would be delicious in a well treated space. You need to be father away, but that's the advantage too in this case.
There are even SDCs. tons of options
Oh there is no question in those three the 2200. Absolutely no question
Ideal. that's a perfect setup really.
Yes it's a very good mic.
Same idea. Small changes. the oldest one is not surface mount. Things like that. Incremental improvements. As is typical with sE
They are all very good sounding. Really nice.
You'd likely find it highly satisfying. Another league from the NT1. To be fair, the NT1 did serve at a time where there were few affordable options, but it's not something most people would choose today because of it's harsh "metal" sound.
white garnet
Over $300 you are starting to get into a "different in the way you want" area instead of better in general. KSM32 is almost possible at $400, it's not even a large diaphragm mic, but more like a pencil condenser in large diaphragm clothing. Has a really great sound. But if you had the sE 2200 and a KSM32 you might not automatically grab the KSM32.
There are entirely other types of mics like the Voodoo VR1, that I think is $400 and awesome, but you need a high impedance preamp to make it work and that is another $900. There are a lot of things ribbons are not good at too.
Maybe some people can chine in, but I can't think of anything $400 that would make me say, I'm glad I'm not stuck with the $300 mics. KSM32 is the closest thing. It's really neat, but 2200 is neat, so it's a weird thing to ponder.
white garnet
2200 is excellent. today (if by amp you mean preamp, and in this case interface). it's like a golden age today. A while ago, most preamps would do about 40dB of gain before becoming much more noisy.
Today there are a lot of awesome options, simple, stable, and very good turned all the way up. The difference between performance of interfaces is much, much smaller than with mics.
If you haven't check out arturia minifuse. Stable, excellent performance, dirt cheap, looks cool. There is a one channel version that is even cheaper.
In most or all cases, the difference in sound quality between all the decent interfaces is less than the sample variation between two of the exact same dynamic microphone. So actual problems are the deciding factor, like interfaces that lose synchronization, have messed up drivers, interference problems,, low max bit depth, or just terrible design.