My travel to churches all around the world has provided quite a few opportunities to mix on Mackie loudspeakers. Large-venue, touring-grade speakers these are not, but placed in the right room they tend to work really well. In fact, the church I attend in Nashville, Tenn., uses powered Mackie speakers in the main room with great success.
I'm just going to come right of the gate and let you know that this new Mackie DLM system really impresses me. So right up front, here's the bottom line: if you want a small powerful system that scales and adapts to many situations, you should take a listen to these.
System details
The system I tested included a stereo pair of DLM12S powered subs and DLM12 powered two-way speakers. The sub has a 12-inch woofer with a three-inch voice coil. Mackie says the 2,000-watt, class-D amplifier produces usable frequency response down to 35 Hz. In addition, Mackie's DLP Digital Processor offers one-touch operation to a digital crossover, presets for use with the company's other DLM and SRM Series full-range loudspeakers, variable crossover control for optimization with any loudspeaker, and six total XLR connections: two line level inputs, two full-range outputs for side fills, etc., and two high-pass outputs for direct connection to DLM loudspeakers
The DLM12 full range boxes offer two-way performance from a 12-inch woofer with a 1.75-inch compression driver. This box also contains a 2,000-watt amplifier and Mackie's DLM2 Integrated Digital Mixer. More on that later.
My first question to the folks at Mackie is how do they manage to fit 2,000 watts of power into such small, portable enclosures? When I lifted these speakers out of the boxes I was floored by how lightweight they were. My wife could have set up this system in just a few minutes.
"...if you want a small powerful system that scales and adapts to many situations, you should take a listen to these."
My first test was in a traditional set up using a separate mixer to get signal to the DLM system. By connecting the output on my mixer into the subs first, I was able to utilize the DLP processor built into the sub (that has a crossover preset specifically designed for use with the DLM12). Users can also set the crossover point manually, and then save it as a preset for later use. The output of the sub cascades into DLM12 with XLR connections. Playing some music from my iPod sounded great right out of the box. I immediately heard a wonderful sound that provided great low-end response. I was not expecting these small subs to produce such a big sound.
On the top, the DLM12 also provided a great sound. And I was able to notice the benefit of Mackie's TruSource technology at work. TruSource integrates the 12-inch low frequency and 1.75-inch high-frequency drivers in a common magnet design. This is in contrast to a typical high/low configuration where the tweeter is placed above the woofer. The benefit is that there is no interference between the two drivers—both speaker coils originate and move from the exact same spot.
This great speaker design has existed in studio monitors for years, and there are pro audio loudspeakers for PA use that incorporate this arrangement—some companies call it a coaxial design, others called it duplex technology. The result is a clarity and imaging that is hard to beat. Moving around in the room I noticed less issue with coverage and smearing between the mid and high range of the spectrum. The sound was consistent and clear, and the vocals were well-placed.
Further inspection
I took out my db meter and decided I'd see how much sound I could get out of these compact boxes. Cranking up a loud pop track, the speakers sounded good all the way up to about 100 dB in A weighting. Flipping to C weighting showed that there were peaks up to 104 dB out of the subs—more then enough for me. At this volume I had to dial back the high end on the DLM12 because it became a bit harsh, and if I pushed much more the top box seemed to give up. Any powered speaker has a limit, and typically with powered speakers in this price range that threshold is quite low. It's very hard to create a speaker at any price range that maintains linear performance the more you ask of it. Still, I was impressed with what I could push out of the DLM series; it was certainly more than I expected from a small, portable system.
At this point I knew that the DLM Series was a serious product, so I started to think of different scenarios for church use. Because of its lightweight design, the first thing that came to mind was a portable system for churches. I used to work for a church in Michigan, and the youth group met in different rooms in our church building. We always needed a portable system for something: for playing music at the entrance of the building as youth walked in, for worship in the service, and sometimes we'd have a time of fellowship after service where a high school student might perform a small acoustic concert. The DLM series would have been a treat to have in any of those scenarios.
Besides sounding good, the DLM12 full-range box also has the built-in DL2 mixer. With this feature Mackie has produced an excellent all-in-one solution. I decided to try it out and so I connected a vocal mic and my acoustic guitar directly into the DL2 mixer on the back of the DLM12. There are two channels on the back that accept XLR and ¼-inch inputs. (There is also a stereo RCA connection great for iPod playback.) Each channel has controls for volume, three-band EQ, and effects send (16 types of reverb, chorus and delay). It did not take me long to find a sound that I liked on both my vocal and guitar. Then I took one of the DLM12s and, using the monitor mode designed kickback stand, I put the box on the floor and aimed it back at myself. I started to get a bit of feedback, so I checked to see if the built-in feedback suppressor was engaged. It wasn't, and after turning it on, any issue went away. After putting on a little living room show for myself I was confident enough in the product to take it out to a real-world situation.
I took the DLM Series to a local coffee shop in my neighborhood to provide sound for an open mic night. I walked into the coffee show with the DLM series (which only took two trips from my car) and noticed the existing sound system the coffee shop used, and I knew that tonight would be an improvement to what they usually have. Throughout the night it was mostly acoustic acts, although I did have a few small drum kits to mic up. At no point in the night did I feel like I ran out of headroom to fill the room. It was a packed room at about 200 people, and I received many compliments on the sound throughout the night from the performers, audience and workers. The DLM really did a great job.
Another great thing about this system is that you can expand it with more boxes. I would love to hear what it sounds like when you stack a few of the DL12S subs together. The system is designed to be stacked, flown, or mounted on walls. Mackie has hardware accessories for all of these applications. The possibilities are vast with this system, so while my testing was in a smaller room scenario, there's no reason that the DLM wouldn't work in a bigger room. With built-in time alignment capable of up to 300 ms of delay, you could use these boxes as balcony fills or lobby speakers in a larger venue.
The flexibility and power of this speaker system is impressive. I know it would perform well for virtually any youth group or a church's remote location. A church could buy a pile of DL12s and DL12 (or the little brother—the DL8, a 2,000-watt, eight-inch, two-way, full-range loudspeaker) and have the building blocks that could handle various scenarios where any combinations of monitor and main speakers are needed. When paired with a Mackie DL1608 iPad-based mixer, you have a system that offers an impressive value per dollar.
Mackie is developing a product line with features that simply didn't exist in this price point five years ago. I'm a fan of the DLM Series, so if you are in the market for a small powered system, go to your nearest Mackie dealer and as for a demo of these great speakers.
