General Speaker Advice and Recommendations

LP6 have hiss worse than the JBLs. Instead of being audible a few inches away, LP6 hiss is audible at my chair behind my desk. LP6 also are not as linear. There is a slight suckout in the lower mids / emphasis in middle mids. Bass quality is inferior / one-note compared to the smaller JBL 5. Finally imaging sucks. The differences are not huge. But the hiss could be a showstopper. Also, wife said meh when she heard the bass. She specifically requested a few YouTube videos to better assess the bass.

LP6 is nice, but ultimately I think it's like Chinese stealth fighter design where inferior parts, lack of money, and partial implementation of the nuances prevent successful copy of the real deals. There are some great things like super adjustability for boundary loading, bass, and treble trim - but these were outside the range to correct the slightly "off" mids.

Good value deal for LP6. But GREAT value deal can be obtained for fifty to one hundred dollars more. Consider Mackie (maybe @ultrabike can attest to hiss). I like the current Mackie lineup and didn't think I heard any hiss in the production bays with them that I visited. Class internal AB amp too instead of D?

Curious if JBL's revamped monitor lineup got rid of hiss. Might need to visit Guitar Center.

P.S. Don't ask me how I know all this about LP6. One day everything will be revealed. My knowledge will be buried here for a while. I shall say no more until a few months time.

 

LOL, they are not that bad. Good for desktop movies, YouTube, PornHub, basic post-production (video editing) work, etc.

 

From memory (Guitar Center), the MR5s hiss less. But if one puts ones ear about 1.68517" from the MR5 drivers the still hiss a little. It does not bother me. I tend not to put my face < 6.58187" from the drivers. On average I lay down about 3.51855 to 4.15181 meters away (They are in may bedroom).

Also, I don't feel 2-way w 5" drivers can only do mids n treble. They can do bass, just not sub-bass. For that, one needs at least certain 7" drivers on a large cabinet, or much larger for high sensitivity on a 3 or more -way.

So in a nutshell, the 305s hiss a bit. The MR5s hiss less. I like the sound of the MR5s better. They tend to be a little warmer. And I do mean a little. Both are what I consider neutral monitors.

 

The HR series probably carries higher quality components than the MR series.

All MR and HR Mackie designs have a controlled directivity tweeter waveguide resembling the Dayton ND25FW-4.

However, as far as the tweeter goes, the MR series uses silk while the HR series uses titanium. For the bass, the MR series uses a port while the HR series uses a passive radiator. The low frequency drivers are not the same, nor are the amplifier and crossover sections the same.

The Mackie MR series is probably best compared against the JBL LSR3 series. The Mackie HR series is probably best compared against the JBL LSR7 series (due to price and features).

Mackie has an XR series which unlike the MR and HR series, uses a larger port (diameter and length), class-D amplification, and a Kevlar woofer. It resembles the HR series more. It's more pricy than the MR, but more affordable than the HR. The tweeter is aluminum instead of titanium.

Note Mackie's focus is powered monitors. JBL does monitors, but it also does high sensitivity large speakers of all kinds.

 

Funny because I got a good listen to the cheap Mackies yesterday while I was visiting a small production office. The Mackies seem to have a more lively sound. Probably because of Class AB amps - they haven't been class D'd and DSP'd to death like the JBLs. The JBL 305 series bass does seem to be tighter to comparable Mackie (then again Mackie seems overall cheaper - no "JBL" premium), but differences don't seem to be huge. I'll need to get these in front of me to assess soundstage. The JBLs with their super duper stealth fighter waveguides were big winners with imaging precision. IME, simple waveguides almost always diffuse up imaging.

 

For bass, I just crossed down to a Dayton Sub-1000 ($100 on sale) @ 80 Hz. So I haven't been listening to the MR5s down to 50 Hz in a while.

I thought my wife was not going to like the JBL waveguide. I was wrong. Once she saw the Batman-ness of the JBL waveguide she told me she liked it, and I palmed face myself hard for not guessing what she preferred for the nth time.

The JBL will have a bit more dispersion which can contribute to the better imaging. That's what I remember actually when I listened to them side by side. The MR5s do have a waveguide. But it seems it's more to protect against diffraction than to perform a Justice League job on dispersion (they use 1" tweeters). However, these are in my bedroom, and our closets have mirrors which reflect sound like a boss. Imaging is not bad but the room is not optimal.

Differences are indeed not huge. I had to single out these at Guitar Center for longer than 30 seconds to decide (it took me about 10 sec to kick other similar products out of the podium).

 

Because those were higher end and before the days of cost cutting from intense competition.

 

BTW guys. When checking powered monitors, make sure the tone and trim controls are not way out of whack.

I remember a particular monitor sounded like a reference for all things that a speaker should never do. Exponentially so. Found out some rando monkeyed around with the tone controls. After I adjusted those, the monitor started to sound more like a speaker and less like an accident.

The good (or bad) news is that monitors these days don't let folks get too crazy with tone controls.