Anyone who’s ever been in the music business has used a Shure SM58 on a live gig somewhere along the line. That workhorse of a mic has been going strong for over 50 years and can still be found working reliably on stages all over the world. The 58 sounds good but there are times when you really need a “premium” sounding vocal mic on stage, and one of the recent go-to units has become the Shure KSM9 condenser mic. Another version of this mic has been released though, that may end up being more popular than its predecessor.

The KSM9HS is unique in a few different ways, but the big one for me is that it’s a dual pattern mic, just like the condenser mics that you use in the studio. But here’s where it gets cool. The two patterns are hypercardioid (great for feedback rejection) or subcardioid.

So what the heck is subcardioid? It’s basically a cross between a cardioid pattern and an omni pattern, where it has greater back end rejection than your normal omni mic. The reason why this is cool is that it greatly decreases proximity effect, so you don’t get as much bass boost when a vocalist eats the mic.

The KSM9HS has a street price of around $699, which is pretty expensive for a live mic. On the other hand, there are some vocalists that will find this mic to be a worthy match. Check out the video below for more about the KSM9HS and its subcardioid pattern.