I love everything about this story. Knew they were supposed to be demos, but everything else was new to me. Work with a guy every now and then- very good engineer- who insists that the 57 is the only mic you ever need. I mean, he still uses everything in the company arsenal, but he stands by that as his desert island mic. Is it still used wrong if it sounds good?
I would argue that a 57 makes everything sound good. If you want it to sound great there are better options. We got out of using them for live because they just aren't very durable. If you break it, it can't be fixed... and that head is the perfect size to get annihilated by a drumstick. They're also counterfeit a lot of the time and the counterfeit ones sound kinda off. The difference between a 57 and a 58 is there's no handling noise with a 58. The difference between a 58 and a Beta 58 is you can fix a Beta 58 and they have a lot more rejection out the back which means you can turn the monitors up louder. I mixed monitors for Corrosion of Conformity once. James Hetfield came by to do a couple songs. Hetfield uses a C414BULS on his guitar rig. Know what? Sounds better than a 57.