Mackie M2000, M3000, M4000

M-Series

Be Aware: If the OVER TEMP LED comes on fre-

quently, something is overworking the ampliﬁer or it’s

not properly ventilated. Look at each of the “extreme

conditions” described above and try to determine what

is causing the ampliﬁer to overheat. Refer to “Thermal

Considerations” on page 16 or to the “Troubleshooting”

section in Appendix A for more help.

You may ask, “Why don’t the fans just

go fast all the time?” Well, if it did,

you might actually hear it whirring

during your quiet moments (there

are quiet moments in your life,

aren’t there?). While this whirring

would be of no concern in most live-sound situations, it

could become annoying in a control room environment.

So, when the M-Series ampliﬁer is not working hard, the

fans are off (or they go slow); when the music gets loud

and puts the amp to work, the fans go fast.

6. POWER Switch

To make the amp operate, push the top half of the

POWER switch. It clicks into place and the light in the

switch illuminates. To turn the amp off, push the lower

half. It’ll click again and the light will extinguish.

When you power up the M-Series ampliﬁer, a built-in

delay circuit prevents any pops or thumps from being

transmitted to the speakers due to turn-on instability

in the system. Be sure the signal driving the ampliﬁer is

turned down when you ﬁrst power up the system. There

are few things as rude as 3 seconds of silence followed

by 250 watts of full-blast stereo sound! (Well, maybe 250

watts of accordian music...)

If you shut down your system, turn off your ampliﬁers

ﬁrst. When powering up, turn on your ampliﬁers last.

This way, equipment feeding the amp won’t “pop” or

“thud” when it’s powered up or down.

Rear Panel

The rear panel of the M-Series ampliﬁers is comprised

of the fans, the input and output connectors, and a num-

ber of cool extra features.

7. SPEAKER OUTPUTS

There are two methods for connecting your speakers

to the M-Series ampliﬁer, binding posts and Speakon®

connectors.

To use the binding post outputs, you can terminate

your speaker cables with single or double banana plugs,

spade lugs, or leave them unterminated with bare wire.

Unscrew the amp’s binding posts enough to reveal the

holes on their sides, then insert your stripped wires

(stripped about 3/8" back) into the holes and retighten

the posts (ﬁnger tight is ﬁne — please don’t reef on

them with a wrench!). Be careful that no runaway

strands touch the chassis or other terminals.

The red posts are labeled “+,” which means positive.

The black posts are labeled “–” for negative. You prob-

ably know the importance of getting these terms correct

— if one side is hooked up “in phase” and the other side

is “out of phase,” you’ll be “out of work.” (By the way,

although everyone says “phase” in this situation, the cor-

rect word is “polarity”... but it’s not as much fun to say.)

Using high-quality stranded speaker cable (16 gauge

or thicker), connect the positive outputs of the ampli-

ﬁer to the positive inputs of your speakers, and the

negative outputs to the negative inputs. The exception:

If you’re using the ampliﬁer in BRIDGE mode, this does

not apply, (see Bridge Mode on page 19).

In addition to the binding posts, the M-Series ampli-

ﬁer also has Speakon SPEAKER OUTPUTS. These have

the advantage of locking into place, and many profes-

sional loudspeakers are equipped with Speakon connec-

tors. There are three Speakon connectors, for channel 1,

channel 2, and for a bridged connection.

-3

-6

-9

-20

SIG

-3

-6

-9

-20

SIG

INTERNAL

STATUS

INTERNAL

STATUS

PROTECT

SHORT

OVER TEMP

PROTECT

SHORT

OVER TEMP

MAXMAX

M.4000

POWER

HIGH EFFICIENCY POWER AMPLIFIER