Review: Mackie MR6 MK3 Nearfield Monitors

The planet is awash with nearfield studio monitors. When I first waded into these muddied waters there were but a few near fields to choose between. JBL, Tannoy, and the Yamaha NS10 and its variants. My first set of nearfields were JBLs with metal dome tweeters — a decision I regret to this day (I’m strictly a soft-dome tweeter guy these days). I recall them costing about $900 — unpowered. Since then my monitor collection has encapsulated all of the above designs and manufacturers, to the point where I now own what works for me, and I’ll be damned if I buy further pairs of monitors, unless of course, something so good comes along I simply must have it.

But for those first venturing into the ‘professional monitor’ market today, the choices are paralysing. Every audio manufacturer, whether a specialist in speaker design or not, has a pair of ‘affordable’ nearfield monitors on parade. M-Audio, KRK, Tannoy, Yamaha, Event, JBL, Alesis, Behringer, Genelec, Yorkville, Neumann, PMC, Quested, Adam, Mackie, Dynaudio, Emes, Presonus. That’s a list just off the top of my head and there are dozens more. Deciding on a pair of nearfields has never been more difficult.

Inevitably, many people’s first monitor purchase will be made on price, and in that regard things have never been better. Nowadays you can kit yourself up with some reasonably good sounding monitors for five or six hundred bucks — and that’ll be powered — no need for an amp. Hell, you’ll add a sub for another five hundred. But here’s the thing (and the point I assure you I’m getting to). In this price bracket, there’s a common design thread to nearfields. They’re a two-way design with soft-dome tweeters and a crossover at about 2.6kHz, they’re powered, they’re ported — either from the front or the rear, they offer a few EQ curve choices, an MDF cabinet and waveguide-style front baffle with radiused edges, and a choice of colours as long as it’s matte-charcoal. It’s a predictable formula, but the recipe tends to work. Consequently manufacturers churn them out by the container-load. It’s no wonder this style of monitor is cheap and bountiful.

Mackie are one of the manufacturers involved in the nearfield game. During the ’90s the company had quite a success with the HR824 becoming the nearfield monitor du jour. It was a relatively unflattering nearfield that translated well into the real world, and put the company on the map for studio monitor design. Unusually, the design incorporated a passive radiator rather than porting to extend the low end frequency response of the cabinet (both designs offer similar low-end response). It’s this heritage that keeps the company in good stead with a range of more affordable (ported) monitors since. Most recently the company released the MR6 Mk3, and despite my apprehensions regarding this particular price range of the nearfield market, I feel Mackie’s experience has lent plenty to the MR range. Let’s inspect more closely.

SIX SHOOTER

Unlike the previous MR Mk2 range, the MR Mk3 features a six-inch model alongside the eight- and five-inch designs, and these are the monitors sitting in front of me now — the MR6 Mk3. A 165mm (6.5-inch) polypropylene curved-cone driver takes care of the lows, and the top-end comes courtesy of a 25mm (one-inch) silk dome tweeter. These are surrounded by a plastic front waveguide incorporating radiused edges for minimising diffraction — behind the waveguide is 25mm thick MDF. The rest of the cabinet uses a 12mm MDF construction with all access to the drivers and amplification via the rear. Typically there’s a port at the rear, and this time Mackie has gone for a circular port rather than the rectangular, narrow porting seen on the previous Mk2 range. This shouldn’t be of great concern, as either porting method would require correct tuning to suit each cabinet.

Speaking of tuning, the rear of the cabinets offers a couple of three-position equalisation switches. A shelving low EQ switch 0dB/+2dB/+4dB at 100Hz, and a shelving high EQ of ±2dB at 3.25kHz. These low EQ adjustments could come into play if you’re forced to stand the monitors very close to a rear wall, or wedged into a corner — not ideal but in smaller spaces this becomes a necessity. They may also be pulled into service when matching the monitors with a sub such as the matching 10-inch MR10S Mk3 (which we’ll get to shortly). For level matching there’s a mini-pot for gain/attenuation which is detented at its nominal level. Cabinet size comes to 323H x 222W x 305Dmm. They’re not huge boxes — and will happily fit into most average-sized rooms. The frequency response is reported as 46Hz to 20kHz at the -3dB point — not bad at all for a cabinet of this volume.

Analogue I/O is comprehensive, with balanced XLR and TRS inputs, and unbalanced RCA inputs — all bases are covered. Power is via IEC connector and the power switch is alongside (so it’s a grab to the rear to power cycle the units). The front waveguide panels include a backlit Mackie ‘stick-figure’ dude to let you know the monitors are on.

The built-in amplification is Class AB and based on a monolithic IC (everything on a chip), with 40W into 4Ω for the low driver, and 25W into 8Ω for the top-end. Peak wattage ratings are double the stated spec for each amp.