Mackie SRM450

I purchased my Mackie SRM450 speakers after an exhaustive search for something to provide my DJ business with quality and reliability. They often list for close to $700.00, however with some leg work, I was able to get the price down to $600.00.

These speakers are active. They have the amplifiers built right in! This si great for the mobile DJ who won't have to carry around a seperate (and heavy) amplifier. Plus, the sound is rich, and smooth. They have a wide dispersion pattern, making the whole room seem to fill up with music (not just in front of the speakers). Because they have amps built in, I'm not worried about blowing these speakers.

They don't have a whole lot of Bass. I pair mine with a seperate sub-woofer when I need that extra punch. Plus, for crowds larger than 250 to 300, you really need more power. I am also concerned about the cost of repair. I have never had any problems, but if something were to go wrong with this unit, they are more expensive to replace than a stand-alone speaker, or amplifier. They are also a bit pricey, but well worth the investment!

The unit is molded plastic, and is very sturdy. It has three handles (one on each side, and one on the top) for convenient transport. The biggest thing that impressed me about the look and construction is the sheer sturdyness of it. These things are made to me hauled around, and can stand a lot of abuse!

If you are a mobile or club DJ, these are the perfect speakers for most of your applications. They are durable, sound great, and require no external amplifier. I would reccomend them to anyone who does a lot of travel with them, because they are rugged. The quality is worth the investment.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Acquired new at the standard price of $699 per speaker, for use as keyboard amplification in a rather loud rock band that plays clubs with audiences of 50-200.

These speakers are powered, which eliminates the need for a powered mixer. (I just use a small non-powered mixer to mix the keyboards). They are also reasonably lightweight, being housed in plastic, compared with most of the plywood-housed PA speakers on the market.

The sound is totally overrated, in my opinion. The high end is decent and fairly clear. However the low end severely lacks power and sounds harsh in comparison with other similarly priced units. I am really disappointed with these and will either have to add a subwoofer to get adequate low end, or will have to sell them and buy speakers with 15" woofers instead.

Plastic housing, seems to be fairly resistant to dings and scratches.

Way overpriced and overrated. You will need to add a subwoofer to get what you really want out of these speakers.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Mackie SRM 450’s have a great live sound , these are a perfect for all of your road gigs. The best thing about these powered PA speakers is that they aren’t that heavy. Any band that is on the road understands the importance of having equipment that is portable and that you can get in and out of the bus or the van the easiest without compromising the sound of the monitors.
The overall sound of these powered PA speakers is crystal clear sound, great high mid and low range that sounds really big in the club and or night spot/ bar that you man be performing in. I didn’t particularly like the sound of the Mackie SRM 450’s when used at an outdoor even. The sound just didn’t travel well and sound as good as it does inside of four walls. This is a problem that you can have with a lot of monitors so it wasn’t something that was that big of a deal because it’s a common issue. The price of these monitors is around a standard basic price for monitors of this caliber and size. You can pull these monitors with you no matter where you take them because like I said before they aren’t too heavy to tote around with you and they can take a beating just in case they are handled roughly it wont be a problem. They sound great with live instruments and all ranges of voices from high to low. We actually had a problem finding the stands for the Macki SRM 450’s because when we purchase them they didn’t come with any. So finding the right stand that provided good balance was kind of difficult but once we did that we had a perfect sound and great looking speakers with the Mackies. Put these on your wish list.

The Mackie SRM 450 is a powered PA speaker for live shows and band practices and things of that sort. These are 2-way, bi amplified speakers that don't require any sort of additional power since they're active. I normally don't do much live sound, but recently the recording studio that I work at put on a show and we had a set of these for the PA. I was told that we also have used them as monitoring on stage, but while I was there setting up and helping with the sound we were using them as house PA speakers. These things can definitely get pretty loud, but the music for the most part wasn't too heavy so we were blasting them to their full potential. They're really easy to set up and to control, and for PA speakers they aren't incredibly heavy as I was able to carry one of them by myself. They now have a newer version of the SRM 450's, but I haven't seen or used them so I can't compare them to these. As far as pure sound quality is concerned, I was definitely pretty impressed with the clarity coming from these speakers, but again we weren't loading it up with too many loud sounds as it was pretty stripped down. I don't know what kind of price we paid for these speakers, but if you can find this version of them now I'd imagine that they would be a bit cheaper since there is indeed a newer version of these out. Macke in generally makes very affordable public address (PA) gear, so I'd be surprised if this wasn't already a deal when the studio got them. If you're looking for a set of powered PA speakers that will get the job done in most situations, the SRM 450's are definitely worth a gander.