Mackie 624s?

Speaker design is Paavo's special interest so post away.
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FunDog
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Joined: Sat Jul 23, 2005 7:46 pm

Mackie 624s?

Post by FunDog »

Paavo, my audio room is kinda small.

I'm thinking of getting a set of the smaller Mackies, like HR 624's. What think you of them
for EQ-ing?


Thanks,


Dogger
har-bal
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Re: Mackie 624s?

Post by har-bal »

FunDog wrote:Paavo, my audio room is kinda small.

I'm thinking of getting a set of the smaller Mackies, like HR 624's. What think you of them
for EQ-ing?


Thanks,


Dogger


FunDog

I have always been fond of Mackie. I must tell you this though....in order to equalize accurately it is important that you are able to reproduce most of the spectrum. The Mackie 624 reproduce accurately 52hz - 20,000hz.
This means you will not be able to hear anything below 52hz. As you probably know, correcting the bass region gives most folks grief. My suggestion here would be to use a subwoofer along with the 624's. The Mackie HRS120 can take take down to an earthquaking 19hz.

Now you're talking :)

So in conclusion....in order to equalize accurately your speakers need to be able To reproduce the widest frequency range possible.

Cheers

Earle
HarBal
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Post by HarBal »

Hi FunDog,

I have no direct experience with these speakers but have seen their promotional literature. What I saw I liked and my guess is that they would serve as excellent near field monitors.

When you say your room is kinda small, how small is small? If small enough, then following on Earles suggestion of getting a sub woofer to match may not be a great idea. You'll probably be getting quite a lot of bass lift from half space / quarter space radiation effects and if you add a sub woofer to the mix you might just end up with mud. It also depends on the distance you are from your monitors relative the room size (ie. are you near field, mid field or far field). In mid and far field monitoring you'll hear the lift in the bottom end provided by the room more readily than in the near field situation.

On the whole I'd think you could mix perfectly well with HR 624's without are sub woofer but I guess it deppends on the style of music you do most of your work on. If you are doing a lot of hip-hop in which sub bass is often used to the max then perhaps you'd be wise to have a sub woofer. On the other hand, most other genres have little bellow 50Hz so wouldn't get any benefit from a sub woofer and may actually be detrimental (cos you may end up cutting the bottom end more than you should). If you are doing work on cinema sound with lots of LF effects etc then clearly a sub-woofer would be beneficial.

On a personal level, for me a 40-50Hz roll of is ideal for monitoring in my room and I'd argue probably in general too. I'd argue this on the basis of spectral content in most tracks generally falling at a 40-50Hz knee, combined with average room effects, and the average quality of sound reproduction systems which makes this performance level near ideal to capture the biggest portion of the listening public. With a roll off higher than that your mixes will be biased toward boomy base and offend those with high end systems and with a roll off lower than that your mixes will be biased to high end systems and sound thin and tinny on average systems. The 40-50Hz is an ideal compromise. I actually have some anecdotal evidence to back this up too. I actually made an electronic EQ to extend the LF end of my monitors down to around 28Hz but I can tell you that I never use it. It certainly made all the sub bass stand out clearly but I just preferred the sound of the average mix in my CD collection with it always off, so that is the way it stays. Again, I think the reason for that is the pragmatism of those mixing and mastering the music that I listen to : they wanted a mix that would sound good on all systems. I presume that is why NS-10s figure highly in a lot of commercial studios : they serve as a very good reality check on how your mix will sound on lower quality systems.

Summarising, I'd argue that you probably don't need the sub-woofer and if you did have then you may have it switched off most of the time. But on the other hand, If you are mastering for hip-hop where a lot of the clientel have cars fitted with sub woofers then it is probably and good investment to have one simply to use as a reality check on your mix, otherwise HR624's sound like a good choice to me.

Regards,


Paavo.
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