This month we look at Mackie’s latest generation of powered loudspeakers, the HD series. Specifically, the HD1531 (there is also a HD1521). Mackie has been producing powered loudspeakers for more than a decade now. So I would expect these new speakers to be an improvement over past models, or less expensive, or both.
I own a pair of SA1532z powered loudspeakers, and they sound very good. They are durable, powerful and can handle a variety of different gigs. While I am not reviewing those speakers, they will serve as my mental reference for Mackie speakers in general. Now, let’s take a closer look at the HD1531s.
Mackie loads a handsome trapezoidal birch plywood box with a 15-inch neodymium woofer, a 6-inch midrange transducer and a heat-treated 1.75-inch compression driver. All these components were designed by the engineering team at Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW). These three components are driven by three Class-D, fast-recovery power amplifiers. The low frequency gets 700 watts RMS (1400 watts peak), the mid frequencies and highs get 100 watts each (200 watts peak each). All the sound frequencies emanating from the HD1531 are divided up by a phase-coherent 3-way electronic crossover and transducer time-alignment. Mackie also incorporates patented acoustic correction processing in every speaker box. (For more details on processing, you can download a PDF from www.mackie.com/products/
hdseries/pdf/HD_EXPLAINED.pdf.) Not only are these speaker enclosures packed with fun on the inside, they have lots of bells and whistles on the outside.
The back of the HD1531 sports a female XLR main input and a male XLR loop out connector. Mackie also gives you a 3-band EQ with sweepable mids and had enough insight to add an on/off button for this feature. They also installed and on/off button for the power light. This feature can come in handy in many situations.
Of course the HD1531 components have complete thermal protection circuitry. This means that if the amplifiers exceed a safe operating temperature the input signal is muted to allow the amps to cool. The thermal LED will also light up to let you know it is engaged. You will find a signal/limiter LED below the thermal LED. This bi-color light let’s you know a signal is present (green) or the limiter is engaged (yellow). You are left with an on/off power switch and an IEC receptacle to finish of the back panel appointments.
Mackie built their HD speaker enclose with 12 fly points for vertical and horizontal rigging and a pole mount was included. They painted the birch box with durable black paint and added a powder-coated galvanized steel grille to protect the transducers. The enclosure is 35.4 inches high by 18.25 inches wide (front), 11.82 inches wide (rear) and 18.81 inches deep. And the whole package weighs in at back saving 96lbs. After checking out the speaker enclosure and reading through the specs, I was anxious to use the HD1531 in some live gigs.
I tested the HD1531 powered speakers in a variety of live sound settings but always as front of house enclosures. I am pretty sure if you pick up a pair of these boxes you will use them as FOH speakers. At any rate, my first outing was at an outdoor event with an audience of about 500 people. I was mixing a blues band consisting of drums, bass, guitar, keys and a four-piece horn section. I teamed up the Mackies with a couple of powered subs to round out the low end of the mix. I used my own graphic EQ and disengaged the HD1531 EQs. I was really impressed with how good the loudspeakers sounded right at the get-go with almost no added EQ. The speaker enclosures were able to handle the wide variety of instruments with exceptional clarity. Especially the horn section. The two saxes, one trombone and one trumpet had really clean definition and separation.
Of course. I EQ’d the individual instruments but the speaker components were responsible for the separation and clarity. All the other instruments also sounded great. The speakers allowed my ears to hear everything. There was room for every frequency.
My next show was also outdoors and I had another four-piece horn section, along with four singers, a keyboard, bass and two percussionists. The group was a very high energy Latin jazz outfit with a lot of music and vocals happening all at once. I again teamed up the loudspeakers with a pair of subs, and again I had great success without a lot of FOH equalization. There was a lot of EQ required to get the band frequencies balanced but the Mackie speakers handled all the music and vocals with smooth, distinct clarity. Usually the band can only judge how good the front of house sounds by the audience’s reactions and the audience was definitely into the group’s music.
I had one more gig with Mackie HD1531s, and that was at a relatively small indoor wedding. The event started with a girl singing to tracks, then a solo acoustic guitar player followed by an iPod playing dance music. I did not use subs for the gig, and I put the Mackies on tri-pods. (By the way, if you try to set these enclosures on sticks, I suggest you get some help.) Anyway, this time I used the onboard EQ and was very satisfied with the quality and precision of the live and canned music.
I would sum up the Mackie HD1531 powered loudspeakers as a really good tool for your trade. If you have a sound company, the speakers will work very well in a variety of events servicing 500 people or less. I also believe they will lend themselves well to installation in a church or school or wherever. My ears and my experience with the speakers tells me that Mackie has definitely taken another step forward in their efforts to build better and better powered loudspeakers. I am guessing we will see a whole line of HD speakers in the not-too-distant future.
