That's fascinating, because the NPR sound is just a close-mic'd Neumann U87 microphone with the bass roll-off engaged:
https://current.org/2015/06/a-top-audio-engineer-explains-np...
The U87 is a classic mic first made in 1967 and used on everything. Lots of famous pop song vocals are still recorded with a U87 to this day. And they're expensive, they cost $3200 new at Sweetwater.
The U87 is a Condenser microphone, while the RE20 mentioned in the article is a Dynamic - I wonder if maybe you don't like the sound of condensers mics in general. They typically have a crisper high-end that catch a lot of detail.