Mackie CR3 Artistic Reference Multimedia Monitor Review

Mackie knows what they are selling. Instead of calling the CR3'due south studio monitors, they are "Multimedia Monitors." I'k guessing this branding is as well supposed to serve as a warning label for those looking for quality sound. Well people are ignoring the warning in droves and this set of active speakers is the number one seller in the studio monitor category on Amazon, and then allow'south see what people are getting when they buy a multimedia monitor.

Component Overview:

Tweeter

The tweeter is a nice looking 3/4 inch fabric dome. There is a tiny waveguide built into the plastic baffle cover and a slightly raised ultra green band for styling and possible edge diffraction in the upper treble.

The back of the tweeter is covered past this makeshift enclosure, with staples and hot glue property it together. I'm not sure why Mackie would become to the trouble, but I'm guessing information technology is at that place to stop air leaks through the front baffle.

Woofer

The Woofer is well-nigh iii.5 inch and appears to a poly cone. The inverted dust cap is odd. CR3's have a very delicate exposed dome with no grill, only still inverted the grit cap on the woofer. Some other thing that defenseless my eye virtually the woofer placement is the recessed mounting of the woofer. It is way back in the baffle with its own waveguide of sorts.

On the back of the woofer we can encounter another problems. These little slots on the handbasket of the woofer are the only vents for the back wave of the driver. There is only a small chip of clearance between the baffle and these vents. I'm thinking maybe this kind of back pressure would lower the FS of the driver(making the cone seem heavier and play deeper), but that is only my own unverified ramblings.

Port

The port is 1.25 inch in bore and 3.5 inches deep. Seems pretty firmly attached, but is tuned higher than nigh other speakers this size I've tested. I'g not expecting deep bass.

Cabinet

The outside of the speaker is a nice matte textured vinyl wrap that matches well to the matte blackness abs plastic baffle cover. It looks pretty sharp and well built.

The baffle cover over MDF is a chip strange. JBL had success with running merely a thick plastic baffle, so I run across no reason why Mackie felt the demand to get with wood behind information technology. Not only that in that location are voids between the baffle and the wood, and the front withal rings like plastic when you tap it. I guess I should give Mackie props for trying to make a good box, merely the whole baffle and driver mounting appears to exist thrown together. It's over engineered in some ways, and under in most means. I gauge I would phone call it rigged if I had to classify the finish product.

Amplifier

There is a plate amp on the back of ane of the speakers. For rear inputs the amp has balanced and unbalanced connectors, but no style to switch to a lower sensitivity setting for using pro gear. Conveniently the speakers accept a switch for placing the powered speaker either as the left or right. Another squeamish touch is the speaker does not have a wall wart power supply, but sadly the power cord is not removable.

At that place is a front aux port for mp3 players or whatever kids use these days to listen to music. Also, a headphone output port if you would like to run your depression level headphone signal through the gauntlet of possible electrical noise inside of the speaker.

Looking at the board we tin approximate based on the size of the heat sink that this is a course A/B amp, and that big heat sink does get stupid hot. The power transformer looks like something from a largish wall wart has been screwed into the amp back plate. In that location are some smoothing caps for the power supply and overall I would rate this as a pretty good design for an amp in a cheap speaker. Note this is a two channel amp, and the speaker is not biamped.

Crossover

I could not get the passive speaker open, so I spent a good flake of fourth dimension post-obit traces on the amp board trying to find the crossover and eventually nailed information technology down to this coil and cap. From what I can tell the tweeter has a 2nd order crossover, and the woofer is simply running wild without a crossover at all. I did see some resistors, but they were tiny through pigsty resistors, and I dubiety they were used in the crossover.

Stands

The CR3'due south come with piddling foam pads to stop vibrations from getting transferred to the desk-bound surface. I used them in conjunction with my stands, but did not find them to be anything special.

Grills

No grills, the brilliant colors effectually the drivers serve as enough of a warning for people to keep their distance.

Listening Notes:

Let's beginning with the obvious. At that place is no way I would ever propose anyone effort to mix sound with Mackie CR3's or used them in any kind of professional environment.

Upper bass is honking, and there is no lower bass.

Treble is a little hot, simply well-nigh balances out with the elevated bass.

About sounds similar a bad studio monitor.

Cone breakdown sounds are really obnoxious on the CR3'south making everything sound harsh.

The book knob has an pretty bad imbalance at the beginning range. It smoothes out after a quarter plough.

Lack of bass extension, Upper bass bloom, and cone breakup are the prove stoppers on this speaker.

Measurements:

Took the speakers exterior to mensurate because the high tuning on the rear port was giving my room hell. The top measurement is on axis, and each one beneath that is in 15 degree increments until I reach threescore degrees off axis with the bottom measurement.

Starting from left to correct nosotros see no bass until 80Hz, and then a massive bass boost tapers into the midrange. A steady climb into the treble with what looks like driver cancelation from the lack of a crossover on the woofer at 2kHz. The rest of the treble does fine and continues out at the aforementioned amplitude until it runs out of steam around 18kHz.

These are shut mic measurements of the drivers. This is useful for finding the crossover slopes, cone breakdown, and seeing what the drivers are trying to do before they have to deal with the bamboozle or interference.

The acme left green line is the woofer's response. We can come across information technology is happy to just continue on chugging all the way out to 10k before dropping 10dB. Too articulate as twenty-four hour period there is some ringing at v.5kHz which is in the middle of the almost sensitive zone for hearing.

The tweeter seems pretty happy to its task, but crosses over really late at a pretty steep gradient.

DSP Correction:

Cut the upper bass, but when trying to add actual bass boost the driver started bottoming out very early with loud clanking sounds. The treble got cutting, but I left it a piffling sparklely to offset the massive fasten correction I did to remove the cone breakup distortion.

Corrected Listening Notes:

Treble sounds alright at present, but upper bass still honks a petty in the 110Hz range.

Final Thoughts:

The Mackie CR3 speakers are non very good. I would not recommend them for any wannabe professionals. Subsequently correction the Mackie CR3's exercise pretty good with treble, but don't play low and have bug with mid bass performance. If you already have these speakers and don't desire to mess with the DSP, crossing them over to a subwoofer and plugging the ports is probably a expert idea.

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