Mackie SRM450

Mackie have idiot proofed these speakers, British proofed them ie dropping them when drunk or turning them on full blast etc. They are road proof beleive me. Contour cut -loudness and another button which is handy, through pass to link speakers and a really nice blue light that dims when you forget to switch then off. It has gazillion compressors that only kick in to protect them and handles.

What can you say they are crystal clear. You can get bass bins but for up to 250-300 capacity they just spread sopund like a warm breeze on a perfect summers day. Stand behind them very little noise -buy monitors.

DJ with them the sound is stunning do anything they are magnificent. No mid range boxiness no booms perfect. Just bear in mind they are monitor quality ie unforgiving. They do not colour your sound in any way.
I use them with Spirit desks, they are the cleanest and the gains are superb

Bombproof and idiotproof.They are like zippo lighters you know they will work and you will get paid.

Put them in the box send them back and they come back fixed. This is only a rumour as I have never heard of them breaking down.

I searched long and hard, considered many options. I needed realiable high quality sound reinforcement for playing various venues dj ing acoustic nights school plays etc. They are superb. The only other speaker other I would have used is EVs with a dynatron but no complaint after 4 years of hammering them they light up and deliver every time buy them with no fear.One slight caveat- they are a two man lift(22Ks) unless hernias are your hobby.

The SRM450 has basic features, as you would expect from a roadworthy active loudspeaker. The low-cut switch and gain control are about the most useful.

Stands up very well even to more expensive speakers. These are a world apart from your regular cheap PA boxes.

These are very reliable units. As a PA hire company, we have never been let down by an SRM450 - with the execption of the occasional overheat!

Mackie in the UK can be slow to respond - I have been trying for months to get a replacement tweeter grill for an SRM350. Other than that, I have not had much experience with them, after all, the products are very reliable.

The Mackie SRM450 is an extremely versatile speaker. It has the advantage of built in amplifiers, together with thermal and overload protection. I run a hire firm, pa2hire.co.uk, and we like these for several reasons ? for one, they are difficult to damage, you can?t overdrive them very easily as the limiter kicks in. Secondly, they have excellent sonic characteristics. We also use d&b Q7 and HK concert touring (contour) speakers, these are far more expensive, but the Mackie SRM450?s stand up surprisingly well ? especially at moderate volumes. The more expensive speakers sound a little more hi fidelity, but you certainly pay for this.
The dispersion pattern is wide, and very even. There is no tendency for beaming (high directionality at high frequencies).
Of course the other nice thing is you can use these as powered monitors, side or front fills, drum fills, or front of house, so they really are multi-role.
On the down side, some may find they are a little heavy. But quality is heavy, honestly! They are a bit lighter than some of the competition. They also have a tendency to cut out if pushed very hard for a prolonged period. This is the thermal cut-out on the amplifier, you can tell right away as the blue light goes out. It can happen if you feed too much bass into them, so it?s a good idea to use the low-cut switch to help. Some people retrofit fans to the heat sink to combat this, but they tend to be vulnerable to knocks.
On the subject of bass, using subs with these is pretty important in anything but a small venue, but I would say the same of any 12 inch speaker. Depends on the program material of course.
All in all, the SRM450 is right on the money for a medium size active speaker ? I would recommend them.

Take care,
Justin Miller
http://pa2hire.co.uk
Sound Truth Ltd

Someone had to turn in the first review for the Mackies (May 2005). So I made it a big one.

These speakers attempt to give studio reference monitor quality sound at high volumes in a rugged, road-quality package (can I get a job in marketing or what). I use mine as a keyboard amp.

I play church gigs, so I use mostly piano, strings, and organs in various combinations and layers. I have three keyboards, a Yamaha S-90, a Roland Juno-D, and a Yamaha PSR-273. I mostly gig with the Juno, but bring the S-90 if needed.

I listened to the SRM350 and the SRM450 in the store, the 350 didn't have enough power for me so I bought the 450.

SRM means sound reinforcement monitor. They designed them not as mains, but as add-ons to a PA system. But lots of people are using the 450's as mains (with a sub if they need the extra kick) and are raving about them.

The 450 gives flat (-3db) sound from 55 Hz through 20 KHz. It has advanced circuitry to guarantee no phase distortion between the woofer and the tweeter. Everything about these speakers is about primo, pure HI-FI, reference monitor quality sound, and lots of it.

It is biamped, with 300 watts for the woofer, and 100 watts for the titanium driver horn tweeter. The sound dispersion is excellent you don't have much of a hot spot right in front of it. On their website they have graphs of the sound dispersion and frequency response characteristics and they are nearly perfect.

The case is a high-grade plastic. It can be scratched unfortunately but is reasonably rugged other than that. If you want to protect it from scratches they make a gig bag for it.

It is shaped so that it can be used as a stand alone floor monitor or a wedge shaped monitor (on its side on the floor), and it has mounting points for various kinds of stands. They are also designed to be stacked (the feet on the bottom mate with indentations on the top).

It is not light at 50 pounds but is compact. It has three handles, one on each side, and one on top. The side handles are more ergonomically shaped than the top handle so I end up carrying it on its side mostly.

It has a large aluminum heat sink on the back. These speakers will shut down if driven hard in a warm environment or with bad ventilation, so a little care must be excercised as to where and how you use them. Before they shut down completely they go into a reduced power mode where they cut the bass a bit, and if that makes them cool down enough they will return to normal.

Controls and connectors are all on a small panel at the bottom on the back. Not the most convenient place I'll admit. Up top on the back would have been a better spot for the controls. A back panel keeps the unit's overall size small, which is a big plus for me.

The 450 has a single XLR input (balanced or unbalanced), and the 350 accepts either 1/4" or XLR (both balanced and unbalanced). There is an output connector for daisy chaining. I had to buy a 1/4" to XLR cable for my keyboards and it worked fine.

The input level is calibrated, the 50% mark makes it a +4 db input.

There is no on board mixer, but there are some sound compensation features: There is a a low cutoff switch for using them with a sub. There is a sound contour button which is essentially a loudness button that gives a +3 db boost at low and high frequencies.

The speakers also have auto-off, they turn off after about a minute, and will automatically turn back on when a sound signal comes in. The auto-off is disabled by a button in case you don't want to deal with the slight delay for it to pop back on when a signal hits it.

Sound is why you buy this speaker. A great keyboard with a poor speaker is still poor sound. And if you want anything resembling HI-FI sound you won't find anything cheaper (except the SRM350).

I have owned other amps. I used the Roland KC series (had a KC-60 and a KC-150) for a while and was not satisfied with their sound. I upgraded to this speaker and am really happy I did it.

I don't mean to knock the Rolands, they are among the better keyboard amps for the price/class. I just wanted HI-FI sound.

Imagine perfectly clean BASS and lots of it, perfect midranges, and beautiful highs. It brings patches to life, and makes a grand piano sound right which is really hard to do.

It is also a lot easier to EQ your sounds for the way you like them when you are starting from a flat response, than from the unknown (and frustrating) peaks and valleys you get with cheaper amps.

Never called them.

This speaker does what it is supposed to do, which is sound great with lots of power. The flexibility of the case is a bonus: small package, multiple handles, vertical or wedge usage, stacking ability, and stand mounting options. Lack of on-board mixer is a small price to pay for the primo sound.