yeah, they put the HID LED's in everything across the pond it seems.

Have you seen the new made in china furman power supplies.

But yeah- fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and shame on me.

The Behringer stuff is entry level anyways so someone that has never bought a dedicated pre will this puppy all lit up in a Guitar Center rack and just "have to have it". The salesmen wouldn't know the diff either.

Good find McCheese. Us little guys need to stick together.

Hey sir mccheese I've seen this somewhere else and all I have to say is anyone that believes a starved plate design will make a tube glow is an idiot. And don't forget to bash presonus, they do the exact same thing in the tubepre only the led is red in that one.

I just hate to see people who don't know any better drop hard-earned cash when they're essentially being deceived by a company. I can think back to a time not too long ago when I would have believed "it's glowing, so it must be good!"

Bottom line: DO YOUR RESEARCH, LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN.

Oh dear... this has been done to death on usenet (Dead Link Removed)

Yes it has LED's behind the valve, yes its Behringer. Does it sound bad for $99 - HELL NO!

2 channel, Mic Pre with a reasonable EQ... please guys - look at the forum name... BUDGET Gear. $99 is budget in my opinion.

I bought one. Am I unhappy? - No! Have I heard GT Bricks, Sebatrons, Neve, Avalon? Yes. Can I afford those? No.

Its a START, it doesn't matter what it looks like - can it do the job? YES!

It gets a sound, a reasonable sound which when your input is a Delta 44 and your PC and software are 2 years out of date really, *really* doesn't matter. I'm no expert - I have no training - but I use one of these on a weekly basis, and it works. Period.

G

Sound quality isn't up for debate here, I didn't comment on it one way or another. This is an example of blatant deceptive marketing. If you don't care, good for you. The fact is that the company is intentionally preying on the ill-informed. Is it the fault of the purchaser for not knowing? Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that the company is making a statement of "we're willing to decieve you to get your money".

Seriously, McCheese made a point to say that his post wasn't about sound quality. For me, it doesn't matter what it sounds like. Their whole company is based on questionable business practices. Personally, I don't want to associate myself with them no matter what their stuff sounds like. There are "budget" products out there made by companies with some integrity. If you have a rack full of be*ringer gear and can sleep at night, kudos. Maybe ignorance is bliss.

Wes

It doesn't bother me in the least. I'm pretty sure my ART TubeMP does the same thing.

I agree totally with BOTH perpectives, both of which say: educate yourself.

Because after educating yourself, you'll realize that not only will it be impossible for the tube to get all nice and glowy with that kind of engineering, but you will understand that it's still doing what it says it does on the tin.

Its presentation is just marketing and advertising, with a specific demographic in mind... same as any other product.

I think the term "warmth" is a load of hooey anyhow... it has all these psychosematic associations that people don't truly understand and certainly can't quantify. You can take mild distortion, roll off certain frequencies, and reproduce the effect of "warmth" as some people perceive it. "Wow, that's much warmer-sounding now that you've run it through Toast-Master!" Well.. OK, because I rolled off the frequencies that sound "cold" in our psychological associations.

And we all perceive it differently... to others, warmth is the effect of frequency-altering compression (ie. non-transparent compression).

Take a pristine but treble-laden vocal track, recorded with a crispy cheap condenser mic through a tube pre-amp. Compare it to an identical track (in theory, of course... no two performances are identical) recorded through a solid-state or digital preamp. Then with plug-ins, roll off some of the harsh frequencies, compress with something that has a touch of colour to it. Ask somebody which one sounds "warmer" and it likely won't be the one that actually had the tube in the signal path.

But, I ramble... as I do....

GregP wrote:
I think the term "warmth" is a load of hooey anyhow... it has all these psychosematic associations that people don't truly understand and certainly can't quantify.

This is an interesting forum. Without offering a strong opinion about what "warmth" is, I'd beg to differ that ANY emotive or subjective experience is "hooey" by virtue of its psychosomatic associations neither understood nor quantified. Wouldn't this be an integral component of the complex often described as music appreciation?

Re the preamp- or any sonic device- I would only not buy it regardless of how it sounds because a businesses' unethical practice involved exploiting its workforce, being environmentally irresponsible- that sort of thing. While less than emamored, I guess I've just learned to accept that a certain amount of hype in terms of the presentation is the de facto standard, and live with it.

McCheese wrote: Sound quality isn't up for debate here, I didn't comment on it one way or another. This is an example of blatant deceptive marketing. If you don't care, good for you. The fact is that the company is intentionally preying on the ill-informed. Is it the fault of the purchaser for not knowing? Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that the company is making a statement of "we're willing to decieve you to get your money".

You're right Big Cheese and I apologise if I offended you. The bottom line is they are offering a product at a price, I guess they need to sell in volume to ensure they make their vast r&d costs back and cover the exorbitant wages for all those well cared for, important workers.... um... maybe not! :oops:

Heck - I can't justify it, but I can still use it. Even if I was conned. By the way have you seen their other 'tube' pre?

http://www.behringer.com/T1953/index.cfm?lang=ENG

Looks like a 1950's radio or a piece of kit from Abbey Road!

G

Their biggest con is calling it a tube pre in the first place...but they aren't alone in this offense. (No-one educated in how pre's operate, particularly tube pre's, would ever call a starved plate design a bonafide tube pre. The tube's real function in this design is to serve as a friggin' noise generator...and as a byproduct adds a couple dB of gain...hardly a real contribution to the amplification going on.)

With the right tubes in the T1953 it's actually a great little pre for acoustic guitar, especially with a little compression in the chain.

So let me clarify that statement for all those who would "piss" on it...

...the T1953 IS a great tool for acoustic guitar if you've rolled in some quality tubes and have your Gain Staging correct and are compressing a bit.

And yes, as someone said before, this is the "Budget Gear" forum.

The Ultragain is about as good as two Tube MPs, (and for the same price) but with the low cut options. If there was one Behringer piece worth getting it would be the 4 channel mixer, which is around $80 (?) now.

I'm surprised that they were putting LEDs in the UK models. For us yanks, they figured two glaring white bulbs would suffice. There were some suggestions for "mods" on a newsgroup (can't remember where) which were just swapping the tubes out. I did, and no sound difference IMO.

burlap wrote: The Ultragain is about as good as two Tube MPs, (and for the same price) but with the low cut options. If there was one Behringer piece worth getting it would be the 4 channel mixer, which is around $80 (?) now.

I'm surprised that they were putting LEDs in the UK models. For us yanks, they figured two glaring white bulbs would suffice. There were some suggestions for "mods" on a newsgroup (can't remember where) which were just swapping the tubes out. I did, and no sound difference IMO.

Higher quality tubes make a sonic difference no matter what the price range of the gear is. Whether you're talking about an LA-2A or an ART Pro VLA...a Hamptone tube pre or a Tube MP...different tubes of different manufacture and different tubes of the 12AX7 compatibles (i.e., AT7's, AU7's, AY7's, ECC83S, etc.) make a sonic difference. That's physics.

It's a bummer you couldn't hear the difference.

maybe the tube just isnt connected

Uh, I don't think anyone was conned, it freakin $99, I'm not sure what you expect at that price, I can tell you what I expect

not much, so the fact that the connectors works, and it looks cool, and it sounds, alright, i guess, makes it well worth the $99

at this point, for me, I would just not buy one, there is no reason to argue the merits of a $99 piece of equipment

I've had a few experiences with 'budget' gear. I still do, though I'm picky enough to have 'budget' gear that has some sonic reality to it.

I've also had a few experiences with Ber....er gear. Like the time I plugged a cord into the DI input of a pre and the connector came off of its little mounting on the motherboard inside....

Or the loose impediment rattling around in one of those little mixers...(solder)...

I'm not here to bash anyone, but why would any company put an LED behind a non-functioning tube and call it something it is not.

Perhaps some of you may wonder why you will never see me print the name of that particular company here on this forum....I simply do not want a google-point established . I dont think they deserve it.

There is much better gear for similar money to be had. Compare the sound of the Yamaha MG series mixers to the B-word stuff...Its unfair at best.

As The Mayor McCheesey said....DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

And finally....YES this IS the budget forum and that gear does fall into the budget forum description.

But lets talk about stuff thats not so disposable.

in my limired real world experience with b* gear Ive found some of them are actually ok and some others not so good- caveat emptor or buyer beware like they say.

A few years ago i had a B* headphone amp which it did work and it was certainly ok. It went with my old studio I sold and I did not replace it as I already had another headphone amp of another brand. But my experience was good with it. I also had one of their pod knock off and I did not like the sound of that so it did not get much use. A friend of mine brought a ADA8000 (I think that's the name)
a B* 8ch pre with adat connections and it was certainly useable for say like connecting to a motu 828mkii to get extra inputs that way. there is no way i would use it for my main pres as it was probably comparable to say an art tube mp (have heard that too at one time) but for extra pres via adat on a pinch its ok for around a hundred bucs... Certainly for someone starting out who needs 8 pres via adat it will get you in the game- not a pro box at all but like someone said this is the budget gear forum...

Ok, that's pretty f*ing funny. :D

But I've got Behringer monitors and a Behringer mixer, and like the other guys said, for budget price they get my job done. If the person using them has no professional training (ie. most of the people reading this forum), behringer gear is probably not going to be the weakest link in their chains.

FWIW I have a BCF2000 and a BCR2000 and they are great. I can't say enough good stuff about the BCF2000, Behringer did a wonderful job with this unit. That being said, it took forever to order in and I pity the person who needs to return it for service.

For my money, the BCF2000 is a must have piece of general studio gear for anyone who uses a lot of MIDI or VSTis. I use it to mix, as a drawbar controller for B4, as a front end for various synths, as a real time controller for drums samplers/VSTis, to drive Virtual DJ, etc. Can't be beat for a buck ninety nine with 8 automated 100mm faders and dual function rotaries.

http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHBCF2000

8-)

AND, it has expression pedal input. :D (The BCR does not)

The BCR gives you two foot switches whereas the BCF gives you one footswitch and one foot controller. I have a bunch of cheap $15 footswitches around here I use for various stuff. They can really be seriously handy at times.

The expression pedal as you mentioned is absolutely awesome for manually controlling effects, writing automation tracks, or controlling application features... 8-)

no, can't see the B word anywhere here :P

I owned a "Composer" briefly many years back, can't say that I miss it at all..