I have been running sound for a few years now, about 6, and I have used pretty much every mic out there, AKG, Senhiezer, Sure, Audix. What I have found, from side by side comparisons, is that this mic blows every other mic that I have used out of the water!!! It has a better frequency response then say, the sm 58, 946, ect. I have compared it to even the Beta 87a, which is a great vocal mic, but it still collors the sound a little, this mic has no tone colloring whatsoever, the highs are a little on the hotter side, but you can easaly eq it. I love how much output this mic has, because then you have alot more headroom, with less feadback, All in all an incredible crystal clear vocal mic, that has incredible detail very high output less feadback very little noise. The best part is the detail, when you mic an instrument (the human voice) that has incredible dynamics you want to pick up every subtle detail you can. This mic does it. Throw away your 58s and 835s and get this mic, or better yet get the ae5400 from Audio Technica!!!! It will blow your mind!!!!

I've used this mic to record draft vocals to be recorded with a condenser mic later. Beforehand, I used the Shure SM58, but it just made too much noise and sounded way different than what was recorded on the condenser. With all things equal, the AE 6100 recordings had much less noise and the vocals came out around 10+ db louder and sounded very, very close to the condenser mic recordings.

I gave a 4 for features only because it didn't have anything that I didn't already expect. I want to try the Sennheiser e945 next.

This is a fantastic mic! I've had about 7 years live singing experience with a loud rock/metal band. During that time, I've used the standby SM58, Electrovoice's N/D 767, Sennheiser e835 wireless version, Shure's Beta 58a, and an Audix OM5. The AE6100 stands head and shoulders above each of these. Out of those I named, the only one that compares is the OM5. The rejection qualities are similar between the two, and the gain seemed to be similar. When I AB'd the OM5 and the 6100 at the local music shop, the 6100 seemed a bit more robust to me, too. I bought the OM5 first because it seemed to be more solidly built mic. Ironically, the problem I had with the OM5 was that the capsule broke on me after falling from a foot high coffee table! Make no mistake, the AE6100 has taken far more punishment than that already, and has had NO problems. This mic is a hypercardioid; feedback is a non-issue. Tell your sound guy that. He'll probably have his settings generically prepared for an SM58, and that will NOT make this mic work to it's full potential. The only live mic I'd want to look into after this one is a higher end condenser, like the AE5400, but I'm too much in love with the tight hypercardioid pattern on this baby to give it up yet. This mic won't let you down, bottom line.

Been using this mic for live performances for about 4 months. great sound, great mic.