All Shure equipment is known for “keeping a beat while taking a beating.” Here are just a few of the remarkable but true tales of how Shure products have survived in the sometimes punishing world of sound recording and reproduction.
In 1968, E.S. Lebeog, of Springfield, Illinois, reported that his Shure microphone survived an 800-foot drop. “I was flying in my open cockpit plane, talking on my Shure microphone, when a slip stream caught the microphone and pulled the plug from the radio. The microphone dropped on a concrete runway 800 feet below and bounced and bounced and bounced. I retrieved the microphone, and—imagine my surprise—it worked!”
One of the many Shure SM58 Microphones sent to the Company every year for repair after being “rocked and rolled.”
In 1970, a fire destroyed the Emmanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Four days after the fire, Robert Haeberle, audio technician for the church, recovered two Shure Model 545 Microphones and a Model 535 Microphone in the charred remains.
“In addition to the heat and fire, these microphones were drenched by torrents of water poured on them by the fire department,” said Mr. Haeberle. “I never expected to use them again, but after drying them out and cleaning them, they didn’t look too bad. But what a surprise to find out that they still worked!”
Singer Claire Litke reported another story, from 1974, also involving Shure equipment in a fire. “Early one morning, I was called and told that the club in Bethel, Connecticut, in which I was appearing had burned down during the night. Because I had left my Shure PE58 Microphone and other equipment inside the club, I rushed over to see whether these possessions had suffered any damage. When I walked into the club, I had the shock of my life. There was nothing in the place that had not been damaged. Even the air conditioners had melted.”
She located her Shure microphone; in the remote hope that it could be repaired, she sent it to the Shure Service Department in Evanston, Illinois. After installing a new cable, Shure engineers tested the PE58 and found the burned microphone none the worse for its ordeal—except for a melted windscreen.
Also in 1974, during the America’s Cup race off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island, a Shure Model 404C Microphone survived a “drowning.” The microphone was aboard a cabin cruiser that suffered a rupture in a saltwater cooling hose. When the engine hatch was opened to inspect the problem, the microphone was hit with a strong spray of salt water. After checking the equipment, Dennis Shea, of D.A.S. Sound Systems, reported that the microphone worked perfectly.
