Distributed by: Dynamic Music | Expect to pay: $1,099
The world of audio and musical equipment can be a tricky one to navigate at the best of times. With so many different products, conflicting opinions and confusing reviews, it’s hard to know what’s actually the best product for your needs.
Luckily, the team at Mixdown have put in the legwork for you, sifting through the spec-sheets and putting the products through their paces to bring you Mixdown’s Picks – a new series of expansive, category defining product guides across our digital channels. Anything that has made the cut has rated highly across the board with the Mixdown staff, garnering a unanimous tick of approval from our staunch critics.
As we all know, this upcoming holiday period is sure to be remembered as the summer where portable PA reigned supreme in backgrounds around the country, and it’s with this in mind that we are proud to present Mixdown’s Picks: Portable PA’s, showcasing all the best small scale PA, monitoring and portable sound reinforcement solutions on the market today.
Mackie SRM450
Key Features: Few companies can boast the high level of heritage and prestige that Mackie hold in the compact PA space. From the introduction of the SRM450 version 1 way back when, Mackie have continued to innovate and push the conventional norms of what’s packed into a portable PA speaker. With the SRM series now up to V3, the latest SRM450 packs all of the same studio quality sound and performance expected from their mid-tier speaker, but also includes some wonderful new features, reaching the demands of modern users and their accompanying environments.
With 1000-watts of power under the hood, the SRM450 packs a whopping gig worthy punch with headroom to spare, and the 12” woofer and 1.4” titanium dome compression driver dish out a mammoth 128dB SPL, with a very impressive frequency range of 42Hz – 23kHz.
The in-built two channel mixer takes care of all the connectivity one could ever need from a portable PA speaker, with Mackie’s infamous Wide-Z inputs handling microphones, guitars and anything in between with ease. A stereo RCA input makes music playback a breeze, ideal for simple playback tasks or for singer/songwriters using accompanying tracks. The XLR thru-put allows for quick and easy connectivity of multiple speakers, if an expanded setup is required.
The speaker modes available are well thought out and ideally suited for numerous applications including PA, DJ, Monitor and Soloist. For the many users that would take the SRM450 out on its own will certainly appreciate the inbuilt “feedback destroyer”, instantly eliminating troublesome frequencies that might take off; alleviating the need carry round an outboard graphic EQ for frequency notching.
Mixdown Says: As expected the SRM450 packs all the punch, connectivity and a feature-rich design to make setup and playback a breeze. With practical, sophisticated DSP on board, from the feedback destroyer to the Smart Protect system, one can expect a reliable speaker designed to withstand the rigours and demands of modern day use.
Sophisticated and professional under the hood features such as acoustic correction and driver alignment and phase correction deliver only the highest definition of audio. It’s no wonder the SRM series continues to be mid-tier portable PA speaker of choice for many a singer/songwriter and event hire companies alike. The ergonomic and lightweight design make the SRM450 ideal for transport, setup and install, further adding to its versatility.
Overall: An solid all-round portable PA speaker delivering just the right amount of professional features, focusing on performance, practicality and reliability, without going overboard with often unnecessary features, especially in this part of the market. Another fine offering from Mackie’s SRM range, which does exactly as it says on the tin.
Head to Dynamic Music to find out more today.