Looking a little closer at the tweeter baffle, Mackie calls this their "minimum-diffraction molded baffle". The molding of this baffle is supposed to help reduce the diffraction of sound waves and allow them to travel more smoothly. It is also supposed to aid in a smooth transition between highs and lows and help produce a nice, wide sweet-spot. A larger sweet spot will help you hear things more accurately even when mixing off-axis. I'll admit that most recording hobbyists and some home studio owners do not have good practice when it comes to monitor placement, so having a wide sweet-spot will help compensate for poor placement.

 
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To work hand-in-hand with the woofer and tweeter on the front of the monitors, the back of the monitors have a long port running along the bottom portion. Mackie says they have carefully engineered this curved port to deliver great bass performance while eliminating any vent noise that may come from cheaper port designs. The curved design of this port also helps eliminate any pressure build-up that could have a negative affect on the internal woofer travel. With the monitors being rear ported, you will want to be very careful how you place them near a wall. If they're too close to a wall, this good port design may come back to haunt you if it does not have smooth airflow!

In addition to the port, fused power cable connection and power switch on the back of the monitors, you'll also find the inputs and settings sections (otherwise known as filters). These sections are nicely boxed off and labeled so you know exactly what everything does. In the inputs section, you'll find an unbalanced RCA input and balanced 1/4" and XLR inputs. The variety of inputs means you'll be able to interface these monitors with practically everything from your audio interface to your home theater or DJ setup. Having all the common plugs will cut down on having to run various adapters just to get them to interface with whatever equipment you may have. The settings section gives you the usual input level, but also a high frequency boost/cut filter and a low frequency boost filter. The high frequency control gives you the ability to add or subtract 2dB and the low frequency boost allows you to boost by 2dB or 4dB.

 
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Being an 'active' monitor, the MR monitors have built in class A/B amplifiers and crossovers, similar to those found in the HR series. If you someone who isn't familiar with studio monitors, you can also get what's called a 'passive' monitor, which requires you to run a separate amplifier. The MRs use a specially designed amplification system that is tuned to work hand-in-hand with the transducers (ie woofer and tweeter) to provide a flat and accurate reproduction of your sound. When it comes to monitors, the less colouration and "hype" in the sound, the better. The MR8s have an astonishing 100W of power for the low frequency driver and 50W of power for the high frequency. The MR5s are a little more humble with 55W for low frequency and 30W for high frequency.

The number of features and quality of the features on the MR series really did surprise me based on the price of these monitors. Feature wise, I felt the MRs out-numbered many models that were priced up to $150 higher, but of course those models are likely to have a sound that is even more accurate than the MRs have (although these other models may have less features). However, for a home studio or someone on a budget, the MRs are seeming like an excellent choice in the "bang for your buck" category. Not to mention the high quality I've come to expect from all Mackie products is clearly evident. The model up from these guys, the Mackie HR824s, are very popular in many commercial studios across the globe.