hands up if you own a bit of behringer kit

[dadking]

It seems to me that lots of people are keen to knock Behringer products but most seem to own a piece of there kit. I for one have a couple of pieces like autocom, DI box and a graphic Eq, I certainly would not say they are my goto choices but when needs arise they are available and used, apart from the DI box which i find unusable due to high noise levels.
So hands up if you have a piece of their kit lurking around your studio

[vinyl_junkie]

I don't have any gripes with Behringer, you get what you pay for imo

Some of it is junk and some of it is actually pretty good value for money

I use the EM-600 delay guitar pedal quite a lot, for the price I can't complain.

I did also have the CC-300 which is meant to be based on the Boss Dimension C (DC2) and it was utter crap

[chris...]

Pretty sure I've got a volume pedal somewhere.

Hope that helps.

[Airfix]

One has to hide ones behringers. It's the shame that's hard to live with.

[_ Six _]

I use a graphic EQ on my PA system. Does the job, sounds good and has never let me down.

[oggyb]

I own a Xenyx 502 mixer. It's pants.

[Bob Bickerton]

Used to, but ditched it all due to multiple failures.................

Bob

[Mike Senior]

Used to, but ditched it all due to multiple failures.................

Bob

+1.

[jaminem]

Used to, but ditched it all due to multiple failures.................

Bob

+1.

+2

[The Red Bladder]

+3

The trouble is, it's a craps-shoot whether you get something worth having and will actually work for longer than a few months. Having had a mixer go up in flames, EQs that are phase problems in a box and headphone amps that weaker than the average proper line-driver, plus having opened and seen what is actually inside their other boxes, I just stay totally clear of their rubbish.

You can get far, far better stuff from companies like Phonic and many others that actually work and only cost marginally more, so there just is no reason to buy heavily marketed junk that is unlikely to work properly from Behringer.

I have had five small mixers from Phonic that cost about £35 each that are one eight hours a day, five days a week. We keep them as personal mixers for foldback and they have so far have never ever had one single fault - and we have had them for nearly ten years!!!

[The Elf]

There's snobbery both ways. Some people don't have many good things to say about Behringer just because they are believers in the 'reassuringly expensive'. Some simply want to appear to be 'cool' on internet fora! There's also a reverse snobbery with some people who seem to feel that any criticism of Behringer must be fought and defended. Of course, it's all nonsense.

Let's face it, a lot of B gear is cheap because it's built down to a price. You get what you pay for, in other words. If you're happy to accept a lower build standard for the sake of just being able to get going, then no problem, but don't be blinkered into believing that cheap always equates with good. Some days I don't want to eat McDonalds.

Some B gear is great for the money. Some does an 'OK job' for a knock-down price. Some of it is just pants. I'd include some of their DI boxes very much in the latter category - not only unreliable, but appallingly noisy and tinny when it *is* working. Some of it is also derivative, arguably to the point of plagiarism, and I would not be comfortable giving my money away for such gear - I voluntarily paid more for my cable tester, for instance.

But I do own and use some of their stuff and I have no problem with this. I'm no snob either way. If a piece of their gear works to an acceptable standard, then I'll use it, but if it doesn't meet my requirements then I'll pass and buy something else that does.

I've had two ADA-8000s fail too early in their lifespan, and one studio owner I know went through several of their headphone amps in an alarmingly short timespan before ditching them for another brand. That many of us are aware of that kind of track record makes us realistic about what we get with Behringer - it may be cheap, but it's not always cheerful, and when your living depends on your gear you need to be able to rely on it to an acceptable standard day after day.

Behringer aren't a cause or a religion that need to be defended, or championed. They simply make gear that should be viewed for what it is, and either does what you want, or doesn't.

[Richie Royale]

I have an early Composer which has a usable noise gate, but the compressor isn't much to write about. But it still works after about 14 years, although the left LEDs have failed a bit.

I also have a Eurorack mixer which has useless EQ and a constant hum, so has been unplugged and propped against the wall for a while.

The only piece I use is a DI box, for my Rhodes and clavinet, it does a job, but I have nothing to compare the quality of it against.

I don't mind some budget kit in my studio, I have a little Samson mixer to accomodate some inputs and it is quiet and compact.

[Zukan]

Absolutely nothing wrong with Behringer gear and I wish people would stop knocking them. Hell, they make the best doorstops I've ever come across after Samson Servos and the C1000.

[vinyl_junkie]

Friend of mine had a cheap nasty Behringer mixer, all I can say is I've had more problems with my 32ch over priced Mackie board than he has ever had with his cheap door stop

I feel as if the crapnes adds to my "tone" now though hahahah

[ParlourSound]

I used to have some, until they broke!

[Gary_W]

I sell medical equipment for a living. When a customer wants to buy a system from me they have a choice between mine and competing products. When I try to discover their needs, the most important factor to come out fron the customer will ALWAYS be some feature or other and of course price.... When you are buying something, you are already imagining how great it is going to be when you have all those new features and your life gets better. Being a dour old sod, I gently point out that the most important feature of any piece of equipment is that you press the 'on' button and it works.

The thing is, features and performance are really subjective. One persons great sound quality is another persons harsh. Reliability is far less subjective. In the case of 'it doesn't work at all' or 'it caught on fire' then it isn't very subjective at all!!

Behringer have earned a reputation for being the company whose 'on button' doesn't always work. I have no personal experience of them and I would not slag them off based on what I don't personally know but the depth of feeling out there based on binary user experience (it works vs it doesn't work) is huge. For this reason I think it is reasonable for an individual to write them off based on other folks experience. Of course, YMMV but that's the way I feel because of how I feel about reliability.

I do no have brand blinkers. I'm fine with using a cheap one of a pricey one of whatever the product is. But if I'm buying something it's because I need it. Any whiff of reliability issues sends me elsewhere as I just do not need the stress in my life. Recording and gigging for me are a beloved hobby as opposed to my living, but even as a keen amatuer I won't risk it. My time is precious and I want to spend my hobby time doing pleasurable stuff, not fault-finding duff gear.

[ramthelinefeed]

I've got three (!) "Eurorack" analogue mixers from Behringer that I bought in 1999 or 2000 or summat. They sound crap. The EQ is crap. The preamps are crap. I also had a "rackmount tuner" of theirs that I sold cos it was crap.

Unless they've seriously changed their crapness levels in recent years, and was rather skeptcial of Hugh's review of their new digital mixer in this month's SoS, which is apparently a "gamechanger". All I can mutter is "well it would bloody well need to be, because the game they've been playing up until now is crap". You know?

[Mike Stranks]

There's snobbery both ways. Some people don't have many good things to say about Behringer just because they are believers in the 'reassuringly expensive'. Some simply want to appear to be 'cool' on internet fora! There's also a reverse snobbery with some people who seem to feel that any criticism of Behringer must be fought and defended. Of course, it's all nonsense.

Let's face it, a lot of B gear is cheap because it's built down to a price. You get what you pay for, in other words. If you're happy to accept a lower build standard for the sake of just being able to get going, then no problem, but don't be blinkered into believing that cheap always equates with good. Some days I don't want to eat McDonalds.

Some B gear is great for the money. Some does an 'OK job' for a knock-down price. Some of it is just pants. I'd include some of their DI boxes very much in the latter category - not only unreliable, but appallingly noisy and tinny when it *is* working. Some of it is also derivative, arguably to the point of plagiarism, and I would not be comfortable giving my money away for such gear - I voluntarily paid more for my cable tester, for instance.

But I do own and use some of their stuff and I have no problem with this. I'm no snob either way. If a piece of their gear works to an acceptable standard, then I'll use it, but if it doesn't meet my requirements then I'll pass and buy something else that does.

I've had two ADA-8000s fail too early in their lifespan, and one studio owner I know went through several of their headphone amps in an alarmingly short timespan before ditching them for another brand. That many of us are aware of that kind of track record makes us realistic about what we get with Behringer - it may be cheap, but it's not always cheerful, and when your living depends on your gear you need to be able to rely on it to an acceptable standard day after day.

Behringer aren't a cause or a religion that need to be defended, or championed. They simply make gear that should be viewed for what it is, and either does what you want, or doesn't.

Spot-on your Elfness.

[mpostor]

Let's see...

4 x Multicom compressors
2 x ADA8000 Pre amps
1 x FBQ3102 graphic
2 x DSP1124 Feedback Destroyers
1 x Composer compressor

In my time owning and using these, I had no failures.

I had a 602 mixer that was used as a keyboard submixer twice a week every week for three years.
2.5 years into this, the PSU cable failed. Not the PSU, the cable, due to the way that I was coiling it.
I've also had a MX2642 mixer for the past 15 years and the PSU on that has gone.
15 years though.
I've got rid of cars with less use than that.

That said, turning up for a festival with a rack full of Multicoms, etc and setting up next to the guy with the Drawmers, SPXs, DBXs and Klark Tekniks, etc would lead to gear envy...

Stu.

[Big_al]

I've got a Mini Mon 800. Had it now for over 6 years and it's still going with no problems!

[vinyl_junkie]

Wasn't the original Behringer compressor meant to be good? The black faced one made in Germany. Copy of the Drawmer LX-20 I think

[OneWorld]

I have had the ADA8000 and that failed too early, until then it was fine, though I replaced it with an Octopre which immediately sounded much better.

I also had the mx8000, used it for years, no problem at all, though a little noisy

I use a BCF2000 - works fine

Today I am going to buy a DDX3216, I am getting it for a very low price, and at that price I am curious to see if it could replace my DM24, which is fine, but I fear the LCD will fail eventually, which is a known fault with the DM series and they are quite expensive to replace, in fact I am buying the DDX for less than it would cost to replace the LCD in the DM24

[James Perrett]

One has to hide ones behringers. It's the shame that's hard to live with.

I know someone who had one of the Ultrafex enhancers and powder coated the front panel black so no-one would know what he was using.

I still have an Ultrafex here together with an ADA8000. The Ultrafex was bought at the time when Behringer were just a little cheaper than the competition rather the bargain basement brand they are now and it still works fine after nearly 20 years. I bought the ADA8000 used a few years ago and it has been fine - I understand that the US models are less reliable due to differences in the power supply design.

James.

[ken long]

I bought the ADA8000 used a few years ago and it has been fine

Do you use this for recording non-critical sources or does anything go, James? Really keen to have another look at one but have been told the convertors are mushy. Btu for that price, obviously...

[Zukan]

Wasn't the original Behringer compressor meant to be good? The black faced one made in Germany. Copy of the Drawmer LX-20 I think

Hard to pin that one down Vinyl as all their products are a copy of summat or other...