NAMM 2020: Mackie intros affordable CR-X studio monitors & subwoofer

16 Jan 2020 by Lyubomir Dobrev | Approximate reading time: 1 Minute

Mackie continues its studio monitor journey with new additions to its compact CR series. the CR-X models. Painted black and neon green, the CR3-X (3-inch), CR4-X (4-inch), CR5-X (5-inch), their Bluetooth-enabled counterparts and the CR8S-XBT 8 subwoofer are ready to serve content makers and project studios as affordable upgrades to a standard set of desktop speakers.

Mackie CR3-X, CR4-X, CR5-X speakers

Mackie CR-X series of monitor speakers · Source: Mackie

“Clean and articulate” is how Mackie describes the sound of these monitors, with the smaller ones offering 50W of power and the 5-incher going at it with 80W. The subwoofer, meanwhille, claims a complete 200W. With all speakers you get wooden cabinets, coated woofers, ferrofluid-cooled silk-dome tweeters, and specially designed waveguides. On-panel functions include volume control and headphone jack.

Mackie CR8S-XBT subwoofer

Mackie CR-X bluetooth monitor speakers · Source: Mackie

200 Watts of bass reinforcment and essential rear panel inputs and outputs, which include TRS, RCA and Bluetooth. There are controls for input and output level, variable crossover, and a polarity switch. The CRDV desktop Volume Control comes included for handy adjustments.

All in all, these are solid speaker + subwoofer combos that will suit musicians, content makers, streamers and anyone into light audio editing. Personally, I’m not too hot on the Razer-like color scheme, but if that’s what sells…