Mackie CR4 4" Powered Studio Monitors

Good monitor speakers but poorly made - Stay Away! – I bought a CR4BT in 2016. It served well until now which is disappointing. Given the price point and the name, I expected it to be better made. Warranty information is hard to find but I assume it is One Year. The speaker performs well and the specs are great. Reviews have been good. Having Bluetooth is a bonus. However, the speaker wire that… Read more

connects the right speaker to the left speaker is a flimsy one. Mid-range in the speaker is sometimes muddled and housing can rattle at some frequencies.

I discovered more recently when turned on, the right powered speaker has a low hum and the bass cone is pushed out to full excursion. There is no sound from the source. After trying various things, like powering off and on, disconnecting devices, etc, I completely removed the speaker from my setup. I connected just the right speaker to the power and turned on. The same low hum with cone excursion. Upon investigating online, I discovered that I am not the only one experiencing this problem. Check out the YouTube video below. I consider myself lucky as I had about 4 years of service. Some have had less than that. Another YouTube video suggests that the problem lies in a faulty capacitor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJjoUpz2Ll4) and shows how to fix this although it is for a Mackie MR8 but I reckon it is a similar issue.

I contacted Mackie in the US who referred me to the local distributor, AmberTech. So far I have not heard back from them. Given this support in Australia, poor manufacturing and price point, I will stay away from these speakers. Rather than messing around with a capacitor, I ordered an Edifier R1700BT to replace the Mackie. The Edifier cost me $130 and will serve me fine.

I got a response from AmberTech. The CR4s now come with 1-year warranty. When I bought them in July 2016, they came with a 3-year warranty. It will cost $50 to look at the problem and $100 per hour to repair it if you wanted to proceed plus freight to send back the product. In other words, if your CR4s stopped working outside the warranty period, just use them as doorstops.

These speakers are Really good – I run Yamaha HS 80s in my home studio and they are good as I suspect everyone knows but i saw the Mackie CR4s for sale and they looked good and i bought them and plugged them into my home system And oh my godfather How good are these ??! they sound for want of a better word .. perfect perfect tone perfect top end and awesome bass response … Read more

I turned them way up and my jaw dropped I Could run these in place of my Yamahas and been completely happy with just these mackie C4s They're that good ..I'm serious these things will blow your mind I'm sitting there stunned how amazing these Mackie CR4 speakers are The missus has them on her laptop these days and you dont really get to hear how good they really are because she keeps the volume down but I've heard them in all thier glory and they are Really Good and I mean REALLY Good

Small great sounding, powerful and flexible speakers ideal for studio – I had read several good reviews of these pocket-rocket shelf or desktop speakers before buying but I had not listened to them. I was not dissapointed, for a home studio they are perfect. They have a variety of inputs, a volume knob on the front, ability to set either speaker as left or right, built in amp, compact but most of all GREAT SOUND. … Read more

Easy to set up with absolutly stunning seperation and plenty of bass for their size. They are a clear neutral speaker with lots of power for a small space.

Highly recommended.

Brilliant for the price – I recently set up a UR22 Mk2 DAI with my Mac and wanted some decent speakers to use with it without spending $500 per speaker. I am a bit of an amateur with home recording so didn't want to go overboard. After much reviewing i found the Mackie CR4 powered multi media speaker. They are great value for the money. Very clear for mixing and listening… Read more

to play back, or just listening to music from the computer. Solid bass and top end with clear mids. Virtually no distortion at high volumes, which is also impressive. As far as recording goes they produce a very clean neutral sound which your can't fault for the price, and you would have to pay serious money to do better. I would highly recommend them. The only this is that they do not have blue tooth for but there is a model that has it for around $50 more.

Great Sound, Unpleasant Colours – Great sounding powered speakers. Keep in mind that these speakers are A$200 brand new, so people need to be realistic when weighing them up against speakers 2 or 3 times the cost. Short and sweet: Would definitely recommend these speakers to anyone looking for a clean bookshelf speaker solution with good neutral tones. A friend of mine produces… Read more

music for a living and was impressed with the quality and sound that these speakers produced as well. Again, keep in mind that these speakers are A$200 brand new, and I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised and satisfied with the sound they produce.

Pros / Neutral / Cons:

Pros:

+ Great clean sound, very little interference or noise, especially if connected to a good DAC / amp.

+ Sound stage is great. If the speakers are oriented properly you can get a great sense of space in your music.

+ Super loud (easily 100dB+) when connected to DAC / amp.

+ Great clean bass (with a good size breather hole on the back)

+ Good quality speaker diaphragm with a dirt/stain resistant polypropylene coating (a coffee splotch dried onto the diaphragm and i was able to wipe it off with a damp paper towel)

+ Good quality rubber suspension (plenty of movement on bass heavy music)

+ Nice quality housing, has a good weight, wood has a nice solid sound to it (as opposed to hollow feeling particle board)

+ Powered speaker allows you to switch between Left/Right placement.

+ Plenty of accessories in the box including foam acoustic pads for the speakers to sit on, RCA to 3.5mm, 3.5mm to 3.5mm, speaker to speaker cable (with tinned wire ends)

+ Aux and headphone 3.5mm inputs/outputs on the front are handy, especially if your computer/equipment is off, but you still want to play some music.

Neutral / Subjective:

~ Foam acoustic pads look a little bland. Just regular grey foam.

~ Bright green coloured ring on the speakers is annoying. Doesn't really match many setups or desks. Would be nice if the ring was replaceable, or easily removed (such as if someone wanted to paint it).

~ Audio is a little soft out of the box for my personal taste. Feels like highs are ignored, with more emphasis put on mids and lows. "Sharpness" don't seem to be all that present. Using software or hardware EQ can fix this in a few seconds though. Noise sharpening in a program like Foobar2000 also works very nicely.

~ Included speaker to speaker wire is a little short depending on your setup, but for any standard 1.7 - 2m long desk the cable is OK.

Cons:

- Speakers are pretty badly unbalanced (this is advertised on the box, albeit in very tiny writing), thus if you put the volume too low, the passive speaker nearly mutes. Only workaround is to leave the volume on the speakers at max, then reduce the volume on your computer/audio equipment.

- Volume is a little low if you're using an unpowered source, such as aux from a mobile phone / mp3 player (no where near 100dB compared to when you're using these speakers with a DAC/amp)