What IS wrong with Behringer mixers?

E

EZP

New member
Hi all,

I have read you all (but a few) saying that Behringer mixers are crapp. I have a couple of friends who are interested in a (secondhand) Behringer mixer and I would like to know, what to look out for. Is it:
- The sound quality?
- The build quality?
- The useability?

Terms I already heard were:
- The mic preamps are pretty harsh.
- The mic preamps sound dirty.

Is the only problem the preamps? And how big is that problem? My fiends want to use it for a musical choir with 5 bandmembers and the were thinking about buying one of the largest desks of Behringer. Main reason for that: Money! It is cheap (for the amount of knobs on it) and they do not have a lot of cash!

All (former) Behringer users and people who heard them are welcome to post!

Thanks,
EZP!
 
There's nothing wrong with Behringer mixers if they aren't broken. It's just that there isn't a lot that is right with them.........well maybe not all of them. Caveat Emptor.

:cool:
 
The main problem, aside from the $200 sound, is that they seem to break down pretty easily.
 
I have a Eurorack MX2004a....

Whats good:
-Lots of routing and other features for a great price
-Good construction compared to the home electronics like vcr's and home stereo's I'm use to working on.
-Good connectors, I'm yet to have any problems with them
-Sounds fine for live sound
-Useable preamps if you grab the sound before it gets killed by the eq.
- Easy to mod for two prefader aux mixes.
- Lots of bang for the buck

Whats bad:
- When things are muted they are on the alt buss and there is lots of cross talk between the alt buss and the main buss. For example if I mute the bass DI channel while someone plugs in I can still hear a small pop on the main buss.
- The eq's are useless, they sound really bad, I'm use to the eq's on the allen and heath boards and there is no comparison the behringer eqs are crap.
- The line lump psu
- No way to route the aux/montior mixes to the headphone output
- Control room and headphones outputs are linked to the pfl all the time. So if I want to check the levels on a channel when I'm listing via the headphone output or the ctrm output I get blasted when I hit the pfl.

For the price they are not all that bad but if you want to record a mix off the busses save up for the mackie, soundcraft or allen & heath.
 
you will get what you pay for...if the rest of the gear is crap (Radio Shack mics, $2 cords,etc) get the Behringer....if you have nice equipment dont get the Behringer......
 
A "little" mixer like the 602a is good value for the $ since you can
use it as a headphone amp if/when it breaks (no kidding here!).

Stay away from any of the "big" mixers-too much risk of
malfunction!
 
I tried my best to stay away from this thread.Butttttt.....

..................Besides the many Beh mixer threads I have replied on
it's overall lack of quality,I just gotta' tell you my MAIN complaint
(out of about 16 complaints I have) about these pieces of sh#t!
Feb '98, went to Sammy's and purchased a spanking brand-new
MX2642,straight from Germany! The stickers that on the back that
indicated date of manufactured and quality control checks stated
"Mfd-1/98" and "Qual Ctl-OS". Yeah baby, I got 1 fresh off the press,no more than 2 weeks old!! Shiny and metallic blue I was ready to do some SERIOUS recording,bussing,PF and AFL monitoring, mixing etc. I never had a problem with ANY piece of gear I have purchased from Sammy's in the past 25 years so I knew I got a great deal from them( i won't reveal the price just yet).
I get home,open the box,remove the bubble wrap,fill out the warranty for mailing (I do that on EVERYTHING I BUY) and the plug
the mixer up. WAIT, there's no got-d@mn on/off switch! Wellll, I'll just plug it into 1 of my dangling power strips and control the power via the strips switch. I get hungry, go upstairs to make a Ham & Cheese hero sammich and approx 15 minutes later I go down to my budding basement stoo-de-o to hook up my processors,ADAT's,etc. As I connect my 1st ADAT, my hand touches the board near the L/R meters; "D@mmmnnnnn , this thing sure gets hot!!!" "The transformer in this baby must be powerful!!" I thought! Oh well, after everything is hooked up,
I try a little 4-track jammy. I reach for the boards track 1 fader to increase to unity and it's glide motion feels the same as my cuzzin's Gemini Scratch mixer. 60mm my ass!! What the heck, Lemme adjust the eq on track 2 due boost midrange;"Hey what kinda midrange is this""Sounds like a cross between a 60-75 hz and when increased jumps to sumthin' like 16kz" Damn,eq sucks!
Well, let me rock these Beh pre's with my new RODEnt1. Click on phantom and bang,audible rumble comes thru my monitors.Switch off phantom no noise. On, rumble again! And the
pre's!!?? Where's the pad!!?? Not even a db or 2! At this point I was disgusted! I just spent $535.00 on this board and was not feeling very good,so I closed up shop,went upstairs and watched some T.V.!
The following week I decided to give it 1 more shot! I turn on the lights in the basement, turn on the mixer and hear ""BZZZZZZZTTT" !!What the fu--!! The piece of sh#t fried and died after 1 week !! I turned ghetto-ugly!!!
Long story short, after spending 2 weeks trying to get Beh Cust Service in both Germany & Washington to rectify the situation (and after numerous ph calls,certified letters,threats etc) I rec'd no help whatsoever! Since Sammy's has a 30-day return guaranty
policy, I thru the piece-of-shit in a plastic garbage bag,took it back to Sammy's, reminded them of my long patronage and subtle
hint that a Louisville slugger was in the back-seat of my car, I exchanged it for an Alesis!
So what have we learned kidd-ee's

Beh Faders-SUCK
Beh Pre's-Suck
Beh EQ- Suck
BehMixer overall operation- SUCKS
Beh Cust Service- Totally Non-Existant ANNNNDD SUCKS BIG TIME!!

B-4 you assume (which I also did) that my particular mixer was prob'ly screwed up from the get-go, I was informed by Sammy's
assitant mgr Ghulaan Harper, that I was the 8th person who had returned their Beh mixer in the past 2 months and that they too rec'd no cooperation from Beh Cock Service, so they decided to no longer accept shipments from Behringer and discontinue advertising Beh products (March'98). They drastically reduced the prices on Beh comps,DSP's and other outboard efx by about 60-70% (Hence why I got a AutoCom,Multi Com and Composer Pro
comps for approx $200!!)

Behringer outboard gear is passable and even decent in some cases, but their MIXERS are the worst I have ever dealt with!

Consider yourself forewarned!
 
if they have the money for one of the bigger desks. They can buy a used big desk Allen & Heath. No competition. or a mackie 24*4, 1604, A&H mixwiz, spirit studio (which is 8 bus!). A lot of other oppourtunities.
 
The Warrantee in the UK is always with the supplier and NOT the manufacture so pick the supplier well.
My 3 behringer Mixers all work as specified on the box.
And they all run hot (except the digital which has a small fan) but that is just the heavily stabilised dc power rails.

If I do a side by side tests against my Spirit SX mxer I find no sonic diff. unless eq is used in silly amounts but find the Beh (MX2004) to have slightly less noise but feels a lot better to use.

For a good review of various Beh Mixers see Sound on Sound, if they are good enough for them ????
 
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