Ten years ago, active studio monitors were strictly a high-end phenomenon, with only a few players like Genelec and Meyer Sound’s HD-1 in the game. Aimed at upper echelon studios, these were very high quality units, largely hand built, and priced to match.

New Mackie HR624 active monitor

Today you can get active studio monitors (with digital inputs no less!) at a street price of under $500 a pair. Now everybody’s in the game, aiming high and aiming low. When Mackie introduced their HR824 active monitors a few years back, they staked out a middle ground. The idea was to offer a monitor with performance and accuracy that closely rivaled the highbrow monitor specialists, but (thanks to those well known manufacturing efficiencies) at a price point considerably lower. With a street price around $700 each, the HR-824 is hardly cheap, but is nevertheless a realistic proposition for the home/project studio owner investing more than ten grand in the whole recording rig.

So far, the 824 formula seems to be successful—and it has (in the peculiar Mackie tradition) spawned a number of followers at even lower price points.

Mackie could have responded by downgrading everything and coming out with a monitor at half the price, but they (wisely I think) instead decided to keep the same quality level and come out with a slightly smaller box at a slightly lower price point. The new HR624 lists at $649, which means we can expect street prices of around $525. Mackie says it will ship in January, and that could be true. Or not. (Sorry, another Mackie tradition that may take years to shake off.)

So, what’s new with the HR624? Basically, according to Mackie, the fundamental difference is in the LF transducer, which is a 6.7-inch (170mm) version of the 8.75-inch woofer in the HR824. Both employ the same basic design, with a cast magnesium frame and mineral-damped polyproylene cone. Up on the HF end, the 1-inch aluminum liquid-cooled tweeter is identical to the HR824. And, like it’s big brother, the 624 incorporates an elliptical waveguide and a composite honeycomb, rear-firing passive transducer for bass extension.

Powering the bi-amplified box are two FR Series amplifiers, 40 watts for the highs and 100 watts for the lows. This is a step down from the 100 watts and 150 watts respectively for the HR824, but with a smaller woofer Mackie figures (rightly we hope) that people won’t be cranking the total dBs as high, and therefore won’t need quite as much juice on the top end. In fact, Mackie specs out the 824 at 121dB SPL per pair at 1m, where a pair of 624s are rated at 112dB maxed out. And figuring the meter bridge is (appropriately) about a meter away, that’s plenty for most applications.

As for bass response, the 624 specs –3dB at 49Hz, where the 824 carries down to 38Hz. But if you really need more bottom end (either way), Mackie has you covered…as we shall see shortly.

Other features offered on the 624 include triple inputs (XLR, 1/4-inch and RCA), sensitivity control, 80Hz high pass filter, high frequency shelving filter (-2/0/+2), proprietary Acoustic Space control for optimizing bass output in various room placements, and an Auto On switch. The front panel has a Standby/Mute switch along with power and overload LEDs.

Mackie HRS120 active subwoofer

Of course, one reason Mackie is offering a smaller box is to supply the current boom in surround monitoring systems. In fact, they submitted the HR624 to THX® for their PM3 certification, and guess what, it passed. So we can figure that at least the Lucasfilm gang thinks HR624s will be neutral and accurate in a small surround mixing setup, and they’re probably right. As for the slightly extended bass of the HR824, well that’s not critical in surround applications and besides, if you want more boom in the room, they’ve got the answer.

Sound the trumpets. Introducing the Mackie HRS120 active subwoofer system. It’s a 400 watt box designed to work with either the 824 or 624, or with most other surround setups as well. It’s loaded with a single RCF 12-inch woofer with a 4-inch voice coil contained within a cast aluminum frame. Deep bass is boosted by an acoustically coupled 12-inch passive radiator. The rear panel controls include adjustable crossover with high pass outputs for use with full range monitors, 110Hz elliptical filter for use with Dolby® AC-3, output level switch for AC-3 and THX® operation, polarity switch and rotary input sensitivity control. Connections are XLR balanced or RCA unbalanced, with slave input and master output for daisy-chaining multiple woofers. Two 1/2-inch jacks are provided for subwoofer bypass footswitch and bypass indicator. Now, did they leave anything out? Don’t think so.

The list price of the HRS120 is $1499 (figure street around $1200) and it also will be available in January. Probably. Maybe even most likely.

So that’s the new package from Mackie, not to be seen at AES this year, shame on them, but otherwise they’re good folks and there may be reasons we know not of for staying in sodden Woodinville. But these new monitors will all be at NAMM in Anaheim. If you have a smaller studio and the HR824s were just a bit much, surely the 624s will be worth a listen. And if you’re going surround, you can sit in the middle of this stuff for a lot less than a fully loaded Genelec or M&K rig, both of which are very nice but then so is a Porsche and that ain’t what I’m driving either.

Click here for Specifications