The microphone is the only piece of karaoke equipment that touches you. Everything downstream — the speaker, the mixer, the EQ, the reverb — is just amplifying and shaping whatever the mic captured. Get the mic right and a modest setup sounds great. Get it wrong and the most expensive PA system in the room is amplifying garbage. This is the buying decision to spend the most attention on, and the one most beginners get wrong.
Most of the wrongness comes from a single category-confusion. Search "karaoke microphone" on any retailer and the first thirty results are little plastic things shaped like microphones, often with built-in Bluetooth speakers, color-changing LEDs, voice-changing effects, and a price somewhere between $20 and $50. These are not microphones in any sense that a sound engineer would recognize. They are toys. They are sold in the karaoke section because karaoke is what people search for, but they have nothing to do with how live vocals are actually amplified.
This guide is the opposite of those. We're going to look at real microphones — the kind professional singers use on actual stages — and figure out which one belongs in a karaoke setup, why, and what tradeoffs you make at each price point.
Dynamic vs condenser: pick dynamic.
The first technical decision is mic type, and for karaoke the answer is overwhelmingly dynamic. Almost every microphone you'll see on a live stage anywhere in the world — concert tours, comedy clubs, podcast booths, karaoke bars — is a dynamic mic, and the reasons translate directly to your living room.
A dynamic microphone uses a small wire coil inside a magnetic field. Sound waves move a diaphragm, the diaphragm moves the coil, the moving coil generates electricity, and that electrical signal goes to your mixer. Dynamics are mechanically simple, physically robust, relatively insensitive (in a good way — they reject room noise), and forgiving of being yelled into, dropped, or used by an enthusiastic but inexperienced singer.
A condenser microphone uses a small charged plate that vibrates against a fixed plate, producing a much more detailed signal. Condensers are what you see in recording studios — vocal booths, podcasts, classical recordings. They sound beautiful. They are also fragile, hyper-sensitive to room noise, prone to handling noise, and they require external power (phantom power from the mixer). For karaoke they are exactly the wrong tool. Every fan whirring, every shoe scuffing, every "oh wait sorry I started too early" mumbled into the wrong end will be in the mix.
The general rule: condenser for studio, dynamic for stage. Karaoke is stage.
The Shure SM58 case.
The Shure SM58 has been the dominant live-vocal microphone in the world since 1966. Sixty years. Through several generations of Beatles, U2, Madonna, and every dive-bar open mic in human memory. It costs about $100 new, less used. It sounds clean, rejects feedback aggressively, survives being dropped onto concrete, and has a frequency response specifically tailored to the human voice.
If you ask any sound engineer in the world to recommend a vocal microphone under $200, the SM58 is the answer roughly 80% of the time. The other 20% will recommend a mic that exists specifically because of the SM58 — clones, near-clones, "we did it slightly differently" alternatives. The SM58 is the gravitational center of the entire category.
For karaoke, this means two things. First: just buying the SM58 will instantly outperform 95% of home setups. You don't need to be a gear expert. You don't need to test ten options. Buy the SM58, plug it into a mixer with an XLR cable, and you're done with the microphone question. Second: the small ecosystem of competing mics in this price range is mostly worth ignoring unless you have a specific reason to care.
Mics worth considering at three price points.
If you do want options, here are the dynamic vocal mics that show up in real karaoke and live-vocal contexts. None of these are wrong choices.
An unapologetic SM58 clone, made in China, sold for a quarter of the price. Sounds about 85% as good for about 25% as much money. The right pick for the absolute starter setup or as a backup mic.
The standard. The thing every other live vocal mic is measured against. Will outlast the relationship you started this karaoke setup to celebrate. The single most defensible $100 purchase in audio.
The German alternative — slightly brighter, slightly more open in the high frequencies, slightly more flattering on quieter voices. The SM58 is more rugged; the e835 is a touch more musical. Pick by ear if you can.
The SM58's louder cousin. Higher output, brighter top end, slightly more presence in the mid-range. Designed for singers who project hard. Great for karaoke if you tend to sing loud and want a mic that helps you cut through a busy mix.
The professional outlier. EV mics have always been the "if you know, you know" alternative on touring rigs. The ND76 is warmer than the SM58, slightly more forgiving on harsh vocals, and beautifully built. Worth a look if you want something that isn't the obvious answer.
Wired vs wireless: pick wired (mostly).
Wireless microphones look glamorous and feel liberating. They are also more expensive, more complex, more prone to mid-song failure, and more often the source of "wait, why is the audio cutting out" moments in home setups. For most people most of the time, you should buy a wired mic.
The case for wireless is real but specific. If you're hosting parties where multiple people pass the mic around the room — a wedding, a big birthday, a group event — being tethered to a 20-foot XLR cable is a meaningful constraint. Singers trip on cables, the mic gets pulled out of the cable mid-chorus, the cable acts as a leash. In those scenarios wireless is worth the upgrade.
The case against wireless: latency, frequency interference (especially in apartment buildings or crowded venues), batteries dying mid-song, range limits, and a price floor of around $250 for any system worth buying. Cheap wireless ($30 Amazon special) is significantly worse than a $25 wired SM58 clone. Don't try to budget your way into wireless.
If you do go wireless, the standard recommendation is the Shure BLX series — about $300 for a single-mic system, uses the SM58 capsule, runs on AA batteries, and works in real venues. The Sennheiser XSW series is a comparable alternative.
USB microphones — Blue Yeti, Audio-Technica AT2020USB, etc. — are great for podcasting and bad for karaoke. They're condensers, they introduce latency, they're not built for handling, and they don't integrate with a mixer. If you're tempted by one because "it's all in one and easy," resist. They will frustrate you within a week.
The boring stuff that matters.
A few things people forget when they buy the mic, then have to go back to the store for:
- An XLR cable. Mics don't come with cables. A 10- to 20-foot XLR cable from a brand like Mogami, Hosa, or Monoprice runs $15 to $30. Don't buy the cheapest possible one — bad cables are a major source of intermittent crackle.
- A mic stand. Even if you plan to hold the mic, you'll occasionally want to set it down. A basic boom stand is $30 and worth every dollar.
- A pop filter or windscreen. The black foam ball on top of most live mics is the windscreen — included with the SM58, separately purchasable for clones. It softens plosives ("p" and "b" sounds) and protects the capsule from spit. Yes, spit; karaoke is a contact sport.
- Disinfectant wipes. If multiple people use the mic, wipe it between singers. The pop filter gets surprisingly disgusting and is one of the great unspoken hygiene horrors of bar karaoke.
The "karaoke mic" trap, once more.
Let me return to the warning I started with, because it bears repeating. The brightly-colored handheld microphones with built-in Bluetooth speakers, sold in the karaoke aisle of every big-box store, are not microphones for karaoke. They are gifts for children and very tolerant adults at family gatherings. They feed back at the slightest provocation, they sound thin and tinny, and they will turn a perfectly good speaker into a glorified squeak machine.
If your goal is "novelty gift for a niece," they are fine. If your goal is anything else — a real home setup, a party, an event — buy a real microphone. The price difference between a toy and a Behringer XM8500 is about $5. The difference in result is about a thousand percent.
Where to go next.
Once you have the mic sorted, the rest of the chain is straightforward. The main gear pillar walks through the full home setup — speakers, mixer, display, room layout — and how to glue them all together. For the speakers specifically, see the speaker guide. For the apps and software side of the chain, the apps comparison covers what you'll be feeding the mixer with.
And if you've ever found yourself wishing you could sing a song that wasn't in any commercial catalog — a deep cut, an indie track, something from a non-English-language artist — the workaround is now making your own backing tracks from any recording you own. It's the third major democratization of karaoke, and worth understanding even if you never use it.
But first: the mic. Buy the SM58. Plug it in. Sing.