Great comparison video, thanks. I've been on the fence whether to get the Shure Beta 98AMP/C, or the Earthworks DM20 for a snare mic... so this was really useful. I'm leaning towards the Shure. Anyway, thanks again, and great drumming, by the way.
Hi Aaron, I'm on the fence again, oscillating between the two. I want it specifically for a snare mic, some say the Shure 98AMP/C is voiced more for toms, whereas, the DM20 is for both toms and snares. I would appreciate your thoughts on the subject. Thanks.
Thank you very much. Nothing special, to me it's the drum, but as far as setup, it's just the old I style DW pillow, and Aquarian Force 1 with their thin kick pad, and the factory logo head is also a PS3.
All the time I liked the A more than the B, but the difference was very subtle, almost a surprise how close they are. But A had a litte more depth and punch. I was scared that A might be the Shure, because I have the DM20 on all my toms already. At the end I was happy that A turned out to be the DM20. But honestly, the Shure´s are a great choice too, especially because they are much cheaper than the Earthworks. Which ones are your favorite?
For my use case I prefer the more natural sounding Beta 98 AMP. When listening to the clip I used the exact same processing on purpose and the DM20 was way more hyped. Specifically take a listen to all of the cymbal bleed between the 2.
You made the right choice to go for the Beta98s. After 2 years of using my DM20s I decided to get rid of them. I bought 6 DM20s 2 years ago and 3 of them arrived damaged out of the box, they did not provide any signal, even not 1 dB. I had to.claim the warranty and changed them. Today my number 4 got broken aswell. Now I have 4 trouble makers, 4 out of 6. I think the electrical built quality inside is crap. I will claim the warranty for number 4 and sell them all. After my experience I can not recommend them.
Personally, I would save the money budgeted for the DM20 and apply it elsewhere. So I would use the Beta 98 AMP. I created the video because I was considering the "upgrade", but this answered the question for my use case; that I had the best option already considering my setup.
