Alesis M1 Active Mk2

These are sweet pair of two-way nearfield monitors. Speaker overall build is pretty good. Casing is made of wood or alike material, plywood or such. Front panel is plastic, and the bass element has rubber around it. It has a solid construction.

The size of an unit is not the smallest, although I have seen a lot bigger ones, but if looking for something compact these are not. These are average sized units, 381 x 216 x 248mm. That is nearly 40cm, 16 inch, height and a little over eight inch wide, and hass almost ten inches depth.

Only thing that has sometimes annoyed me is that bright power-led that has still not failed after over five years of use. In fact my pair is so old I can't really accurately remember when I bought them, but it is something between five and seven years I reckon.

Amplifier pot at the back has become pretty stiff, but I dunno if it is due to moving it around, due to not keeping surroundings clean enough so it might have gathered some dust, due to not using it or due to bad quality. I guess it would be much better if I have turned it even once after I initially set it, but you know how it goes, set and forget. So not a problem, some lubricant probably would cure it once for all.

These are powered pair of nearfield monitors. They are specificated to have 75W bass element output and 25W treble tweeter output at max. I have personally found this more than adequate, I have had no performance issues. Elements are still in good condition and sound good, so I guess they are of quality construct too.

These monitors are advertised to have 50Hz-20kHz frequency response. I have evaluated it when I bought them, and found that this is correct, but they really go a bit deeper. Depends how you measure it, as always. The bass has been enough for making it sound good and that is enough for me.

You can plug both XLR and TSR males into these sweeties.

Sound is awesome for the price. I have heard monitors nearly twice as expensive that could not be judged to objectively surpass the sound quality of these. If you place these incorrectly, however, you might get bass that is far from sweet. So I recommend to experiement and think about the placement, these are not to be put near the walls. But there is no pair of speakers that does not need to be placed correctly, are there?

Overall and specifically I have no complaints. Trebles are clear and crisp and not too exaggerated as in some of cheap and mid-priced products. Bass is controlled and pleasant. Coloration is near zero as far I can judge, although I really am used to these. There is no noise at distortion, at least I haven't found it, at levels I would use at any situation where these are suited. Of course you can overload them, but that is not recommended for you speakers nor to your ears.

These have no mounting holes or anything like that. Power switch is at the back, but easily reachable from right side of monitor. No-nonsense design that looks pretty good. These are studio monitors, what do you expect? Well, mounting for stands would be nice, but there are solutions that need no holes, so I don't really need them. Neither do you.

I'm well satisfied with these, after the years they have been with me it has always been a delight after a pause to come back to them, turn them on and press that play button. I haven't really found anything at same or even much higher price that would be better, so these are a steal deal and really worth of stealing, so if someone would steal these I would steal them back! Seriously, I was just at the store another day and gave some listen to monitors there were, and ones that were nearest to the quality, two pairs from what there was, cost almost or over twice as much per unit than pair of these, another pair being from well recognized manufacturer.

Alesis M1 Active Mk2 has two thumbs up from me. If you are looking for monitor pair under 600???, these definitely the best I've come across, and at the price range up to around 1000??? they are well worth of considering only because of their sound quality. So check them out if you're on market.