Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I did extensive research on powered speakers before picking up a set of these Thump15's. I found a woefully inadequate amount of info on the newest generation of Thumps that just came out this year, so I felt obligated to get a solid review out there. I've had these speakers for about a month now. In that time I have used them to DJ a wedding in a large gym, run band rehearsal in a basement, and do fully mic'ed live sound for 12 bands at a music festival. I think I've put them through their paces enough to have some initial thoughts to share. I am coming from a background of using pretty much exclusively passive mains and monitors to run live sound for bands. After enough times of hauling around an excessively large setup for something simple like hooking up a laptop for a wedding, and dealing with various shortcomings of the other setups that I've used, I decided that I wanted to invest in a portable but powerful powered system. The new Mackie Thump 15 is a 1300W speaker - that's peak, not program - Mackie doesn't share program/RMS ratings with us. That said, the built in limiters let you really push these things, and I can tell you that in a shootout they outperformed a set of 700W program 2x15 passive mains that I put them up against. So this is one big change from the previous generation, rated at 1000W peak (Note that Amazon still has these listed as 1000W, it is in fact 1300W now.) You can absolutely run sound for a band with mic'ed drums and amps, or DJ a small-midsize wedding, with just two of these 15's set up as mains. Another, and important to me, update from the previous generation is the look. I personally feel like they are much cleaner and professional looking now with the flat grille, no shape for the horn cut out or whatever. They look and feel significantly classier, in my opinion. Compared to prior generations of Thumps, Mackie has also changed the inputs and EQ settings. Each main has two input channels that are dual 1/4" or XLR (combo jacks, doesn't take up much space and looks very clean/simple). They have separate volume controls to mix to taste and a master control as well. There is also a pass thru to daisy out your signal to the next speaker or to a sub. There are no EQ knobs, just presets for live sound/recorded music/monitor/hi-pass for when paired with a subwoofer. Note sub takes all the bass out, leaving that for a sub to fill in, it doesn't turn your Thump15 into a sub. More on EQ later. There are a couple items of note that anybody shopping for these things should be aware of: Weight - they are shockingly light and portable with easy access handles. Especially comparing them against passive mains in wooden boxes - it's still blowing my mind how easily I can get these around. I was able to purchase these in a package deal with rolling Gator cases included, and I'm able to roll into a venue with both mains at once and practically zero effort. Amazing. I am a little concerned about cracking the plastic because they are so lightweight, but they seem very sturdy and haven't even taken on any scratches after a month of pretty significant usage. Power - these are called thumps for a reason. I easily filled a small gym with two Thump 15s and no sub without seeing the limiter/peak lights blink even once. The audio stayed crystal clear, didn't get distorted or harsh in the least. That was for a wedding requesting largely pop, rock, country music - if you're looking to do trap music or electronic stuff or whatever, or plan to push your system hard for long hours, you'll obviously want a sub, but I was seriously impressed by the bass response out of these things right out of the box. That easily segues into my next point: EQ. There is no such thing as a flat EQ with these new Thumps. This is definitely a big down side in my book. Music mode includes a bass boost. Live speaker mode has low roll off and mid/high boost. Monitor mode has a low roll off and 2khz cut to reduce feedback. Sub mode is a very aggressive hi-pass taking out all of your low end. These are each very usable modes that are well thought out for their particular purposes, but there is no true flat option and I think that's a real bummer. You could set up Thump 12's in a studio and monitor a mix, but you'd never know what you've actual got tracked because they're adding their own color to your signal. The other down side - the bass boost is just too much. After using these, I see why the crowd/target audience seems to be small time DJ's rather than bands or singer songwriters. They kick out the bass and it feels great, but they do it too much. I would compare the Thumps to a set of Beats headphones - crystal clear, good quality, but super bass heavy. Hip hop fans love them, but audiophiles turn up their noses at them for altering the sound too much. Remember on old radios how they had that bass boost switch that made the speaker sound better when it was quiet but a little crummy if you cranked the volume all of the way? Kind of the same thing happens with these, though I didn't hear any distortion the bass tended to take over the rest of the music more than it should. If you're playing a college party, you're probably going to love it - but if you're trying to mix live sound or just have a discerning ear for this sort of thing, you're going to 100% absolutely require your own EQ on the signal before it hits the Thump's input. But if you have that, and know how to use it to your liking, you're going to have no problems whatsoever getting really great sound out of these guys. Having two inputs means a singer songwriter technically could plug an acoustic guitar in direct and then a vocal mix and be up and running with one speaker. That would be super easy, but especially for the above EQ reasons, as well as having no signal processing like reverb, DON'T DO IT. A quality mixer in the signal chain is an absolute requirement, budget that in. This is true even if you're just hooking up iTunes and playing music through. For one, this gives you control back over the EQ to reign in the bass a bit, and with that accomplished these speakers are absolutely marvelous performers for their value. But more importantly that gives you better control over driving these speakers appropriately without risking blowing them. When I ran that wedding, I left the input volume on the thump at 0 (50%, right in the middle) and cranked the master volume to 100%. Then I could just keep an eye on the master output signal level on the mixer. Don't go into red, won't have any distortion and won't have any problems. You could also take advantage of any limiters/compression on your mixer to protector your speakers (and everybody's ears) even more. I ran them both at 100% for like four hours straight and didn't have any trouble. I ran them for twelve bands in one weekend and never saw any performance issues, peaking, etc. at all. I think people who manage to blow these things are just not being smart about their signal chain, cranking the input gain to 10 and sending too hot a signal through. These things will give you plenty of headroom to get loud, be smart about how you run them and they'll treat you right. One last semi - downside - the included power cable is super short and rigid. Not easy to wrap up and barely reaches the ground if you put them up high on stands. Definitely no surprise there, but investing in an $8 15' AC wouldn't be a bad idea to give you a little more room to work with setting these up in different locations. TL;DR - with a little planning and the right equipment, you can get excellent performance out of these speakers. For the price point, I think they're definitely a five star product. You get better wattage ratings and (with your own EQ) as good of performance as the the comparable offerings from JBL or EV for significantly less $$$. 10/10 would recommend.