Review: Mackie MR6 MK3 Nearfield Monitors
Mackie takes affordable monitoring to Mk3.
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.
NEED TO KNOW
DA SOUND (& DA VERDICT)
Interestingly, the crossover is set at 3.25kHz, which would account for the rather abrupt midrange produced by these monitors. This lends itself to some very nice imaging but I couldn’t help feeling too much of the mids were being taken care of by the low range ‘hyperbolic curved cone’ woofer (concave bowl-shaped centre to the driver cone). This style of low-end driver is almost the exclusive bastion of Mackie monitors, and there’s dispute as to the validity of the design. Regardless, while remaining dubious of the midrange representation of the MR6 Mk3, I found the monitors translated pretty well to other monitors. Personally, I found the best reproduction for translation to be knocking back both the top- and bottom-ends switches — they just sounded hyped at the ‘flat’ settings. I’d skip the sub initially if you were on an extreme budget.
I think it’s best to realise at this price range, and with so many monitors available within this price range, that there are a set of parameters most manufacturers have settled upon. It’s not rocket science or voodoo to create a decent monitor based on this design: the MDF cabinet, ported (front or rear — it doesn’t make a huge difference), two-way drivers and A/B amplification, a waveguide-assisted front baffle and Bob’s yer uncle. I believe you’re fairly assured of pleasant monitoring for writing and composition, accurate editing, and general audio playback goodness. If your forté is electronica and synthetically produced sound then by all means add the sub unit — the beauty of this ubiquitous design is these monitors are incredibly inexpensive. Sure we have Chinese manufacturing to thank for a lot of this affordability, but also the fact this design is probably about as far as this monitor design can go — the research has been done and the results are available quite readily. We’re seeing (and hearing) the epitome of ‘two-way studio monitoring’ nowadays — and the MR6 Mk3 is a textbook example of such. In many ways you can’t go wrong with such a design, and being so cheap, when you move on to something more upmarket for mastering, or even simply for an additional reference (something all audio folk should have in their toolbox), the MR6 Mk3 units are still going to be pulling their weight. An enjoyable listen, non-fatiguing, great imaging, usable translation, and most encouraging, utterly affordable. As always, check them out with material you know — decide accordingly.
RESPONSES