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I just got a pair of Mackie MR8s, and they sound fine so far, but I am getting a little static/hum. It's not terrible, but I have to keep the input level on the speakers low so it it's not noticeable (I don't really understand how I set the input level to be honest). I had a pair of M-audio av40s, so these monitors are defiantly an upgrade for me.

Is there anything I should know about setting these things us? Is there a certain level of hum allowed for reference monitors? Honestly, when these things are sitting four feet away I can't hear it much, but still I can't turn the input level up much without the sound becoming more present. Did I get bum speakers? I hope not.

Right now they are connected to my M-audio profire with unbalanced 1/4'' cables. I will be getting balanced cables soon. I won't know if that's the problem until I get the cables, but I wanted to check the forum to see if this pool of knowledge might be able to shed some light on reference speakers.

Thanks,

-Nathansmind

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Comments

Boswell Sat, 03/19/2011 - 09:10

Is there hum when you unplug the cable from the back of the speakers? If not, the problem is not the speakers. See if it improves when you get balanced TRS or XLR cables.

If you want to be able to control the monitor volume manually and independent of the computer, I can recommend the SM Pro Audio Nanopatch or its bigger brother the MPatch 2 if you want headphone output as well. You would need an additional set of TRS jack leads to include either of these in the speaker chain.

nathansmind Sat, 03/19/2011 - 09:24

Unplugged there is only a quit static sound that doesn't increase when I turn up the input level. It's not very noticeable. Plugged in there is more noise which is not noticeable at low input levels, but as I turn up the it becomes intolerable. I will try the balanced cables, and see what happens. Thanks for the response.