The Blue Encore 200 microphone is a higher end entry into the hand held live vocal microphone market by the famously glitzy microphone company Blue. What is particularly interesting about this microphone is that it requires phantom power. 48 volts. Yep. Wait. What is interesting about that? All condensers need 48 volts of phantom power! I will stop you there. The Blue Encore 200 is a dynamic microphone. Phantom power is used to excite the signal. The Encore 200 like all the other Blue microphones, the 100, 100i and 300, is very glitzy and comes with a pouch and a clip. This adds to the solid weighty feel of the microphone in general. Now, the Blue Encore 200 has a frequency response rate of any average dynamic microphone. It starts down in the low end at 50 Hz and manages to extend itself all the way up to the higher airy frequencies of 16,000 Hz. Like most other microphones in this price range and this particular application as a vocal microphone, the Blue Encore 200 has a polar pattern of a typical cardioid. And again, like many other microphones in this particular live application, it has high capabilities of handling high levels of sound pressure. It is able to handle up to 147 dB of sound pressure before potentially being damaged, or significantly distorting.

OVERALL OPINION

This microphone does not have that ridiculous grainy quality as the Shure SM58. That is a plus for me, but for many other types of singers or even instrumentalists, having that grainy midrange push is an advantage for the punch of their sound. This microphone picks up a sweet sound like its friends in the same general line of microphones, but unlike the 100, this microphone has a particular exciting sound up top that works on some people and does not on others. You must try this microphone if you actually want to know what to do with it.