Mackie CR5-XBT vs PreSonus Eris E3.5 BT

Now to jump straight back into our video today, I'm going to be comparing the Mackie Crxbt range, which is a pair of speakers studio monitors designed...

I gave it 4 stars because if you hook it up to the Eris Bluetooth speakers, the sub WILL NOT work via Bluetooth even though the speakers will.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound bright and clear through the CR3-X. There’s the slightest added bass depth in the lows and low-mids, but it’s very subtle. The higher-register brass, strings, and vocals claim far more of the spotlight, and the high-frequency detail is ideal for mixing.

I'll keep this one short and sweet. I had these monitors for about a year and listen to music on them every so often and have used them on for audio mixes for video editing. I had the chance to A/B these against two other pairs of studio monitors since, as a professional tv/film editor, I had a couple rented pairs loaned to me for a couple projects. Up against the M-Audio BX5s these were my preferred speakers

One thing I will note for those who care, these speakers are NOT magnetically shielded and, therefore, are not safe to be placed next to CRT TVs or CRT monitors. Some of you might laugh that I included that but I guarantee some retro gamer out there is going to thank me that I included that. Overall, the speakers work for me as decidedly mid-range quality speakers and I’m pretty happy with them though I do wish that they were shielded and I could use them in my retro setup.

Many manufacturers will make a pair of small speakers that are pretty mid-rangey, without much bass *or* treble but also without a lot of distortion, shrug their shoulders and label them "studio monitors". Speakers like that are usually "fine" but neither do they have character (as studio monitors shouldn't) but they also don't sound very pleasing to the ear. These speakers *sound* better than most "studio monitors" in that they actually have a little bit of bass and treble and they're not intending - or maybe just not succeeding at - being truly flat. But if they're not succeeding at it, they're not succeeding in a pleasing way

Sound is excellent for desktop speakers. I'm playing FLAC files of classical music and jazz through the standard motherboard audio, no fancy DAC or anything. Deep clean bass, sharp clear transients, plenty of power. Crank up Buxtehude's Praeludium for Organ in C major played by Hans Davidsson and the bass will knock books off the shelves! Flaws in poor recordings become painfully evident, you'll need an equalizer to rescue some of them

Nothing to write home about. Bass: Lacking. Good enough for most music genres ,but if you're into electronic , you might feel the bass is lacking. It's there, just not the soft wrapping bass you know sound systems with big speakers or 2

UPDATE: There is NO authorization or pairing code required to sync a phone or other bluetooth object to these speakers. If you live in an apartment complex people can (and will) bluetooth music into your house at all hours of the night. The only way to keep this from happening is to turn the speakers off entirely, making them basically useless because it can happen at literally any time. Updating to a one-star, do NOT buy these speakers if you live in an apartment complex or have neighbors

with Bluetooth for 1 day.

Well its an unacceptably loud noise floor. Returned them for a pair of Edifier 1850DBs that I've been very happy with and should have just bought from the get go as they're cheaper and sound just as good if not better.

Looks 9/10 Materials 7/10 Sound quality 8/10 Bass 7/10 Volume 8/10 Setup 6/10 The sound quality is pretty decent until you go up in volume - it seems a little weak on top and bottom at the highest volume levels. Overall bass is not bad, but not spectacular. I wonder how accurate the sound really is. The overall appearance and construction look pretty good but the materials aren't particularly high-end

Overall, the sound quality was good for my typical use case (Piotr Grabowski's Friesach sample set). There was even an okay bass response from the 16' pedal flue stops, which surprised me because these speakers are rear-ported and the low end is rated to start at 69 Hz. The bad: All the other reviews about the hiss were unfortunately right!! Anytime I played any note on the organ, no matter how loud or soft, there was a quiet but definitely audible treble hiss that I couldn't get rid of. To be sure it wasn't my equipment, I swapped in another set of budget monitors (Pioneer DJ DM-50D) and they made no hiss

I will have to say PreSonus, you hit another one out of the ball park with this package. Great Job guys!! Oh, by the way shipping was killer too, very fast and nice people as always. Thanks Amazon! :)