What's up with Behringer?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:09 pm

Hi,
I've recently started looking into recording gear (about 3 months now), and I've read dozens and dozens of forums and reviews saying that Behringer isn't good... my question is why do most of the people think that? and what's your guess of the best mixer brand in the same very low price range?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:46 pm

I dono, for 45 bucks I like my Behringer Xenyx 502. But for that money there might be something even better. Needless to say, after seeing how expensive 'good' gear is, I really think it is a great tool for learning! No idea about their other products though, but that's what I hear a lot too.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:11 pm

Hey Slice -

Great question. First - if you do a short search on the forums here, you'll find a LOT of reasons why people hate Beh***ger.

Here's my reasons -

1 - For that price, it's plainly obvious that they are using literally the cheapest possible parts for their gear. I couldn't build a mixer that cheap with a DigiKey catalog and a year's worth of time. Much less pay some poor Chinese woman $.05 an hour to sit in my sweat shop and put the stuff together. In other words, the parts are of poor quality.

Let me explain even further. Let's take a resistor for example. A resistor is labeled with different colored bands around its body to indicate its value. In addition to that, it's got one last little band that shows its tolerance. A 1% resistor will have a gold band, a 5% resistor will have a silver band and it goes down from there. (Some of you EE's on the board, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - it's been a LONG time since that class and I may be a little off on my values).

In any case, let's assume that a resistor has a value of 75 ohms. With a 1% tolerance, it could be as high as 75.8 ohms or as low as 74.2 ohms, but in general, it's pretty darned close and will not cause any major issues if it's that little bit off.

Take a 5% tolerance resistor at 75ohms. It could be as high as 79 ohms or as low as 71 ohms. This is a gigantic swing!

Now imagine a 10% or even worse!!!20% tolerance!!! If you're not sure how this would affect your sound, here's a simple test - put a simple 110 ohm resistor on your word clock termination(AES - or 75 ohm for SPDIF) and change it from 1 to 5 to 10 percent tolerance. Now listen to the sound get brittle and choppy (and maybe even pops and clicks)

A 1% (or better) resistor can set you back from $.50 a piece to as much as $5 a piece! A 10% tolerance can be bought in bags of 100 for only a couple dollars.

2 - Behr***er is famous for ripping off others' designs. For example, they ripped off Mackie on both their "Truth Monitors" and some of their mixers. So, Mackie patents or trademarks (or both) their circuit design and then B comes along and steals the desing but makes it with lower tolerance/cheaper parts and sells it. This is a very bad business practice. Despite the fact that Mackie sued B, it didn't matter since the laws aren't the same in every country and are very tough to enforce across borders and oceans.

3 - This is going to come off all wrong and I don't mean it to.

Audio Engineering is an art and a science and it's being destroyed. Why I say this is because everyone who plays a guitar or drums nowadays thinks that they can go to guitar center, drop $50 on a mixer and $50 on a cheap ass mic and become an audio engineer. Then, the market gets flooded with music (not altogether a bad thing, but too much *poorly recorded music* is a bad thing.)

I honestly believe that there needs to be a higher price of admission into the audio world than $100.

Sorry - I know it doesn't sound very nice, but I hold it to be true.

Cheers -

J.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:29 pm

Thanks for the answer!

Any advice on good brands that still come in at a low price, but not cheap?

(I'm actually looking for a mixer with 5 to 12 ins and 2 or 4 bus, any ideas?)

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:46 pm

Quote:

couldn't build a mixer that cheap with a DigiKey catalog and a year's worth of time.

Minor quibble here, Digikey is actually really pricy, you pay for the excellent service.

Quote:

A 1% resistor will have a gold band, a 5% resistor will have a silver band and it goes down from there.

Actually 5% is gold, and silver is 10%, however through hole resistors are harder to find in modern gear. (No… please no one start the whole SMT is bad thing again.)

Quote:

Audio Engineering is an art and a science and it's being destroyed.

True.

Personally I agree with all mentioned, the bad tolerances make for noisy problematic units. Being an electronics designer and professional engineer, I have to admit circuit copies upset me. It’s simply not professional, for that reason alone I would have a hard time supporting Behringer.

However the market has shown once again, that integrity is not important to most consumers. Pro audio is a very interesting market, historical Audio Engineers were quite versed in at least the basic physics of their profession. As the price of gear drops the perceived value of audio gear drops.

Ask yourself if someone gave you a $50 mixing desk would you spend the time to learn its inner workings? What if someone gave you $50,000 dollar desk? Which would treat with more respect? Which would you feel more compelled to study?

Bottom line, and I apologize for the rant, Behringer is not providing the world with gear to enable the masses, its actually reducing the value of music production.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:04 pm

Now I do agree with the lower quality components but then again I don't totally. They use lower grade parts so the mixer or whatever doesn't have longevity. Things like linear faders and pots will wear much faster with heavy use.
I don't agree that they are using components such as resistors and capacitors that have such a wide tolerance that accuracy doesn't even exist. It's just not true.
I have used many low end boards made by Behringer. My only issues: parts breaking down faster, higher crosstalk between channels... You can still create an excellent sounding mix. The internal noise is surprisingly low, no hum. The meters are pretty accurate and all the inputs and outputs are balanced. They cut corners where they can but the circuit design isn't as shady as you would expect. Things like quality control are lower so getting a bad piece of hardware is much more common. Its just the many ways they keep the costs down.
Bottom line, if you don't have the $$$$$$ funds to get a top notch brand there is nothing wrong with going with Behringer. You can get a solid decent sounding mix and even have the routing flexibility of a similar spec Mackie for much less the price. Also if your just starting out, Behringer boards are perfect to start with. Then you get better and grow then step up.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:09 pm

Jeremy did such a good job that I'll just riff off of his answers.

1. Quality. Not only does Behringer put price ahead of all other attributes, you can't even get a fix on anything that they do consistently well. In contrast, a company like Peavey makes a lot of inexpensive stuff, but it is clear that they at least try to make it durable. I'm a reformed Behringer owner. It's all gone. I would have been better off saving my money to get better equipment in every case. Didn't always know it at the time, but it is clear in hindsight.

2. The trail of lawsuits speaks for itself. However, it does not bother me that much. We are talking mixers and speakers here. Everyone uses some degree of reverse engineering. I know several engineers who have been sued for similar reasons, so I've seen the other side. I'm willing to leave this to the lawyers.

3. Here I completely disagree with Jeremy. If he has led a bad life he will probably have to spend eternity listening to a bunch of people with multimillion dollar studios complaining that new technology has let riffraff like him into the business. Wink

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:48 pm

Ha...you must know me well Bob as it's quite likely that I'll end up just as you say. Though my fear isn't what you say, it's having to listen to Kenny G and John Tesh records for all eternity.

Bear in mind though that I'm not saying inexpensive gear has no place and that people can't start and learn on cheapo stuff. I just hate that companies like Behrin**r sell themselves as "pro" and so many people buy it and proclaim themselves "pro engineers."

If they pitched it as "educational tools," I'd have no beef with it at all.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:10 pm

I myself think of Behringer stuff as home studio equipment nothing more, it will never go pro that's for sure, but for someone like me it does fine until I go to university in recording arts.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:49 pm

Cucco wrote:

.... Though my fear isn't what you say, it's having to listen to Kenny G and John Tesh records for all eternity....

Never imagined you'd been that bad. Or is that just plans for Saturday night.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:07 pm

Words hurt Bob...

Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:30 am

Slice wrote:

...what's your guess of the best mixer brand in the same very low price range?

Well, it's obvious that price is a serious factor here since you say "very low price range". So that being the case, Behr**ger is you answer. They are cheap and can work.

If you are just messin' around it'll likely do the job you want. If you want something that will last for a dozen years or so you will need to spend more money.

I would suggest checking out the used market, craigslist, pawn shops, eslay, etc. You can likely get a better unit for around the same price.

Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:45 pm

Let's say...what's the cheapest after Behringer? (with not too bad quality)

Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:02 pm

In a word....Yamaha.

Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:21 pm

Thanks, I'll look into their gear.

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