How Mackie SRM V-Class PA Speakers Take Studio Sound to the Stage

Mackie has made industry-leading PA speakers for a long time, starting with the classic SRM450—still the most popular portable loudspeaker ever made. Since the beginning, the goal of the SRM series has been to bring studio sound to the stage. The latest and most advanced edition of SRM, Mackie SRM V-Class, accomplishes that goal better than any of its predecessors. But what does “studio sound” mean? And why is it so important to bring that sound to live venues and clubs with high-performance speakers?

We’ll start with a real-life example: Let’s say you’re a DJ who has picked out a set of incredible tracks. You’ve run through it on your headphones. You have the transitions nailed. You know it’s going to get the dance floor moving. But then you get to the venue, and the songs don’t quite sound right. The bass may be muddy or weak. The highs might get drowned out. And whenever you try to crank the volume to compensate, the whole thing gets washed out. What gives?
 

The answer: Those songs were captured in a recording studio. The club is an entirely different beast. That’s where the technology of SRM V-Class comes into play—these are PA speakers that preserve all the clarity and accuracy of each song, as it was meant to be heard when the artist recorded it. As you’ll see, this is a surprisingly difficult feat.
 

So, here’s how we brought studio sound to the stage with SRM V-Class.

Why Music Sounds Good in the Studio

We’re talking about PA speakers for live sound, but first, we need to explain why studio tracks sound so good. Then, you’ll see why it’s so hard to replicate that sound when you play those tracks through loudspeakers in venues. Studio sound comes from lots of sources, but overall it’s about having control over everything—the space, the equipment and more.

Control Over the Room (Real or Digital)

Classic recording studios have specialized rooms. There are “live” rooms for recording instruments and full bands, often with thick rugs and prized vintage amps. There are vocal booths for singers. There’s a control room for the engineers and producers, where they can monitor everything and play with extremely expensive studio toys. 

Each room of the studio is suited to its purpose, featuring just the right size, shape, acoustic dampening and general vibe. The way the sound reflects from the walls, the floor, the ceiling—it’s all been considered and controlled. Some recording studios even have famous rooms, like Abbey Road’s Studio Two or Capitol’s Studio A. These special rooms have a sound all their own. Artists come from all over the world to record in them.

Of course, these days music is just as often created on a laptop. The same principle of control applies, perhaps even more than it does in a brick-and-mortar studio. DAW plug-ins can emulate the prized rooms listed above. They can even offer a level of tweaking that is impossible in the acoustic realm. You can literally control everything.

Control Over Speakers (and Where to Put Them) 

There are a lot of speakers used in the recording studio. Each one is built for its purpose. Electric guitars go through amps. Organs and keyboards can use specialized speakers like the Leslie. Old-school reverb rooms even have speakers that play sound just so mics can pick it up again across the room, capturing how it reverberates in the space. That’s not to mention the studio monitors that are used for playback and mixing. These speakers, like the HR824mk2, are made for total accuracy above all. Each speaker does its job (and no other).

In addition to having specialized speakers, studios can also place those speakers in exactly the right spot to get the best sound. Amps are placed at the exact right angle to the mic. The engineer sits in the “sweet spot” for the monitors, so that moving even a couple feet to the side would alter the sound quality. The same rule of placement goes for acoustic instruments—ever seen drums sitting behind a few well-placed barriers? Studio speakers and instruments are not placed for presentation, or even for comfort. You put them wherever they sound best.

Control Over Volume 

Because studios have mics to pick up sound, volume is rarely an issue. If an amp is too quiet, you can crank it, or move the mic closer, or turn up the gain on the recording console. More often, the sound from an amp or drums is too loud, in which case you can choose the perfect studio compressor for whatever you’re recording. More importantly, you can tune that compressor to have the exact right setting for the material. In the end, you’ve not only solved the volume issue, but also likely made the audio sound even better than before.

Sound Is the Priority

Putting the specific details aside, the central difference between a recording studio and a live venue comes down to priority. Recording studios make the sound their top priority. Whether it’s a small home studio or a sprawling professional complex, the purpose of a studio is to record and create music that sounds as good as possible. From the construction to the placement to the specific settings on the gear, it’s all about high-quality audio.

Clubs and music venues have much more to consider, and the result is that sound often takes a back seat. Read on to learn why studio sound doesn’t always make it to the stage, and how SRM V-Class loudspeakers bridge that gap.

Why Music Sounds Worse in the Club (Unless You Use SRM V-Class Speakers)

So, the recording studio has produced a super clear, high-quality, professional track that gets released into the world. You think it’s the perfect track to play at the venue. Everybody in the audience will know the hook. The dance floor will be ready to get wild to that perfect bass drop. Why is it so hard to deliver that experience for them, with perfect accuracy and clarity? 

It’s because everything that plays in your favor in a recording studio goes against you at the live venue—unless you’re using SRM V-Class loudspeakers, which solve each problem and bring the sound quality back to studio standards. Here’s how.

You Don’t Control the Room

Every venue is different. Spaces are chosen for all kinds of reasons, from location to price to size. Sometimes they aren’t chosen so much as they just happen, like when an abandoned DIY space is reborn as a fully fledged punk venue. The sound quality will often take a back seat at first. You’ll need to find a way to make the room sound great after the fact.

SRM V-Class speakers sound excellent in any venue, thanks to Advanced Impulse™ DSP. Using a complex, intelligent filtering system, SRM V-Class keeps the sound clear and accurate across the entire range of the speaker. The studio-quality transducers and 2000W Class-D amp give SRM V-Class the power to get the job done, but it’s these built-in smarts that make sure the studio quality extends out into the real world, on stage and in the club.

You Don’t Control the Placement

Even if the venue is specifically meant for music, placing speakers can still be a challenge. There’s a lot to fit within the venue: a bar, possibly some tables or seats, a live mixing board or DJ booth, a stage big enough for bands, a spacious green room, etc. Once everything else is arranged, there may be limited options for where the PA speakers can actually fit. On top of that, the audience is going to move around—they’re not sitting in a “sweet spot” like a studio engineer. How do you make sure the PA speakers cover the whole space, and just as importantly, sound good in the whole space?

SRM V-Class solves this problem using the DSP, and also a custom Sym-X™ horn around the high-frequency driver (also known as the tweeter). It took some complex engineering, but basically, this horn is designed to make sure the tweeter operates efficiently while sounding equally good across the entire “dispersion zone”—the entire range for the speaker, which is 60° vertically and 90° horizontally. That zone is a massive sweet spot, making it easy to place the speakers and allow the audience to move around, while still sounding like a recording studio.

You Might Need to Crank the Volume 

When talking about sound, perhaps the most obvious difference between a club and a studio is that the club needs to be louder. Usually it needs to be way, way louder. You’re trying to fill a space packed with hundreds of people, rather than a small room with a few musicians and producers. But as you crank the volume, you’ll run into distortion. 

Sometimes the bass is simply overwhelming the rest of the sound and unbalancing the whole thing. Other times, it’s the limiter. PA speakers usually have some kind of limiter built into them, but these are nothing like the hand-selected compressor you might use in a recording studio. To deal with all the types of material that might come through the speaker, limiters are often brunt affairs that leave the audio sounding flat, or even causing an unpleasant “pumping” sound.

SRM V-Class keeps clear and accurate even at incredibly high volumes thanks to two technologies: Transparent System Protection and Intelligent Bass Management™. Instead of using a blunt hammer to pound down the audio, Transparent System Protection constantly analyzes the signal, compressing only the frequencies that need to be compressed. This leaves the rest of the music untouched, preserving accuracy when you crank SRM V-Class to the limit. At the same time, Intelligent Bass Management™ preserves the subtlety of the bass, especially important in clubs or anywhere with a dance floor. It’s hard to get down to muddy bass!

Sound Is Not the Priority (Without SRM V-Class)

In contrast to a recording studio, a venue will rarely put sound first. Nor should they, necessarily. Think about it: as much as everyone loves an acoustically perfect concert hall, those halls are not great as wedding venues or nightclubs. Where would you put the bar?

SRM V-Class closes the gap between the venue and the studio, using a combination of hardware and built-in software. That way, the venue can be the venue, the studio can be the studio, and the music can be the music—no matter where you play it.

Conclusion

Now you see the challenge we faced with SRM V-Class speakers. With all these forces working against us, these PA speakers bought the studio to the stage. The solutions required a combination of engineering and technology, both in the hardware and digital elements of the speaker. We really nailed it in the end—and that’s why you can count on SRM V-Class to deliver studio-quality results for any venue, indoor or outdoor.

Of course, all that work is really our responsibility, not yours. As a DJ or venue owner, you care most about the results. You want the show or event to sound great. Maybe you don’t even want to think about room acoustics, or speaker placement, or the complexity of the limiter inside each of your speakers. SRM V-Class PA speakers do that work for you, so that the only thing you need to worry about is picking the right songs, nailing the transitions and reading the vibe of the room. With SRM V-Class speakers, we did our job so you can do yours.

And, now thru DATE, you can save up to $100 on select SRM V-Class speakers, including the 12” and 15” models, plus the matching SR18S subwoofer. These speakers are best in class, no matter the price—but you might as well save on them while you can!

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