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Thread: Advice on upgrading/replacing Mackie SRM 450v1

  1. #11
    The Thump is trash compared to the old SRM450. If you have really old 450's, they were made by RCF for Mackie and are a really solid product. Mackie was sold to a soulless megacorp since then (the brand I used to love, EAW, was also sold to the same soulless megacorp and I'm not happy about it). Sure there have been advancements and you can get something better than those 450's now, but not for the price you want to pay. But adding a proper sub to them will make a huge difference.

    As far as the high pass / low pass filter situation.. here's the deal: When you don't have a sub, the tops get the whole signal and handle the whole frequency range as well as they can. But they suck at bass.. they are just not made for it. Subwoofers on the other hand, are designed for bass frequencies. In order to get each speaker doing only what it does best, you have a circuit called a crossover. This consists of (basically ) two filters. A low-pass filter allows bass frequencies through to the sub, without any mids and highs. And a matching high pass filter which let's mids and highs to the tops with no bass.


    Each speaker does what frequencies it does best. And ideally these filters match each other so that there's a smooth transition from sub to top with the minimum overlap.

    So, there are two ways to go about this: In older powered speakers the sub contained both the low pass for itself and high pass for the tops. If you chained the connections from the mixer to the sub to the tops, the filters would be correctly in line to the tops. And since both filters were made to go together, they match well.

    But in the newer systems, they put each filter in the speaker that needs it. The sub has its low pass, but it doesn't process the signal to the tops at all, the tops have their own high pass filter in them. When you put it all together, it still works just the same as before.. Only the physical location of the high pass has changed from being in the box with the sub to being in the box with the top.

    The problem comes when you try to match up a top that does it one way with a sub that does it the other way. And that is your situation. Old tops don't have the right filter to match up with most (but not all) new sub's.

    But in your case, the mackies do have a 75hz high pass filter switch. It is not actually put there for crossover use, it's there to cut unneeded bass when you use the speaker for vocal PA. But at least you have something.

    So, let's say you get a sub like the EV EKX18SP or EKX15SP.. That has a selectable low pass of 80, 100, or 120hz. Not all sub's have selectable frequency they are usually just 100hz. But the EV does.

    So if you set that to 80 and set your 75hz filters on the 450's.. Its not going to be a perfect match, but it'll definitely do. You can also add an external crossover unit to do this job more precisely if you're not happy with this solution.

    But, if you happen to get a sub that does things the old way, with both filters in the sub.. then that works perfectly with your Mackies.


    Anyway bottom line is that, from my POV, it seems like you are getting back into DJing and you want to get rid of those Mackies and get something nicer. That being the case, don't allow the filter situation to push you toward a sub that you don't really want. If you can get it to work out that way, great. But if you can't, then try to get a sub that has an 80Hz low pass setting, and use that with the switches on your Mackies and that'll likely sound pretty good till you trade up the Mackies, then you'll be up to date on the filter situation and it'll all work out.
    Last edited by light-o-matic; 08-15-2018 at 10:25 PM.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by light-o-matic View Post
    The Thump is trash compared to the old SRM450.
    +1 on all that. I still own a set of SRM1801s.. actually one of them is labeled as a TH18 which was the very early Thump series, exact same speaker though. These are better than the current Thump series but I can't recommend them either based on what I have learned about them. They do have built-in crossovers which would be perfect for pairing with your 450s but they have both died repeatedly due to a couple of design flaws that make you scratch your head. Clearly they were not designed from the ground up they were just a parts bin assembly using whatever they had on hand.. the amp module is the exact same part used in some of their powered mixers, and that ain't the worst of it but it means other functions that should be handled by DSP are analog or even passive in this box. I own a couple Mackie mixers which perform quite well but I have sworn off all Mackie speakers in favor of EV including the EKX18sp that was mentioned earlier, all of my EV speakers have a 0% failure rate but for me Mackie speakers have had a 100% failure rate... 4 boxes.. 4 failures. Oh yeah... the other 2 were Thump 12s. LOL.
    Last edited by conanski; 08-15-2018 at 11:08 PM.
    Paul O'Brien
    Old Tech Guy
    www.Techott.com

  3. #13
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    Thank you guys for all of your thorough feedback. It is greatly appreciated. I think I’m gonna stick with the old V1’s and invest in a good bass speaker setup for sure.

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