I am tempted to purchase a pair of Mackie speakers . The pair I have heard are the powered SA1521's. Any of you guys use these and if so would you recommend them?. Also does anybody use the smaller SRM350's and if so do you use bass bin's with them?

I'm not a fan of them, but only my own opinion of Powered Speakers in general. i.e - lose a channel of your amp, you lose a speaker as well. There have also been some issues with MACKIE's overheating - although this is rare.

These are just my opinions of any powered speaker in general - in that you lose the flexibility of swapping amps / speakers as easily as you would using seperate amp & speakers should a fault occur in either.

There are a few people on the forum who use them, so aside from the technical opinion I've stated above, they will give you a more realistic users opinion regarding quality / sound etc.

Howdy

I assume you meant srm450@s?

I've been using the 450's for over a year now and only once did one of my speakers cut out due to overheating...and it was during that really hot spell in a venue where the aircon had given up for the night, so the room had to be close to 100dgs f, so I wasn't surprised.

Other than that, I've never had any probs with them, not even had the speakers clipping and never had to drive them that hard, even in a venue holding 500 guests.

I'm thinking about getting a base bin to go with the 450's, but only as a little bit extra woomf in larger venues.

In your average hotel for up to 400 guests you won't really need a base bin, the punters certainly don't know the difference, unless you're playing to a group of musicians or dj's.

My recommendation, well worth it.

Darren

do it active speakers are the way to go, i use hk audio elias myself and love it no end.