Behringer and the hits keep coming...

[tulsa]

I have and use (frequently) a B-1 condenser from Behringer that I bought over 2 years ago. It worked great for vocals and acoustic guitar when I got it and it works great now. BUT that microphone has not been anywhere other than my home studio which I keep at a constant temperature and as dust free as is possible in a dwelling. I've read articles where others have had problems with their gear from Behringer and I don't doubt that Behringer has to be as thrifty as possible on certain components to keep the costs affordable. Their quality control is more than likely one major way of cutting costs. From a quality control point of view - lack of it may increase the number of problematic items being shipped. From what I've read though, Behringer honours its warranties in a professional manner (the sales suppliers on the other hand seem to be less than honourable in some cases). I'd be interested in knowing the "full" story in many of these cases where people have bought Behringer gear and have had problems with it... could it be mishandling or misuse or inappropriate use in many cases?.... I wouldn't know, but I suspect in a good percentage of the cases there is atleast minor abuse leading to the demise of the product. It's easy to trash Behringer and write them off as a gear contender. The fact is that Behringer gear is priced to be as affordable to the home recording enthusiast as possible. Behringer gear is for the most part user friendly, comprehensive and performs to expectations for gear of its price range.
Most of Behringer's products are placed on the market to meet the needs of the little people, the people on a budget. They suit a particular market and work well within that market. It isn't marketed to go head to head with Mackie or Soundcraft.
My 2 cents worth... take it or leave it.

regards,
tulsa

 

[smuffjules]

All this may be true, however, I have had problems with Roland, and Marshall. Support being just as weak. ( I love it when I know more about the product then the support person on the line). I have also had problems with getting any support from dealers (Sam Ash is the worst, and Guitar Center won't even talk to you about support unless you buy their "extended warranty" which to me says "we can't promise that what we sell you isn't crap and refuse to take resposability for it if it is unless you pay us more money" . Infact the only company that I ever found to be anything close to good as far as support goes would be Mesa Boogie.
Fact is Behringer is alot of bang for the buck. As a musician I feel that I (we) have been getting ripped off by every end of the music business including ( and worst of all) by the manufactures. I know everyone wants to throw up the "R n D justifies the expense" line, but it's crap. The mark up on the gear we buy is nothing short of highway robbery. (please explain the reason a Gibson Les Paul cost $2600 when they are not even hand made! How much RnD goes into that?) If the product sounds good (and that really is the bottom line) and is half the price of a Mackie with twice the features...it's a no-brainer.
BTW...I have heard many horror stories about people waiting 6 months or more to get thier Mackie back after shipping it to them for repair. Also, ALL mackie products are now using cheaper parts made overseas, but not passing on any savings to the consumer.....same price, lower quality.

Too true.
China is making the SAME products as Americans and Germans etc. for a fraction of the cost because of the cheap labour.
They strip down the original top price products and streamline the manufacturing with dirt cheap labour, and change the design a little so as not to get sued. What you end up with is a great product at a low price.
It's not priced low because it's not good, it's priced low because they can make it a lot cheaper than Avalon, SSL, Neumann, Neve etc.
Now, they may cut a few corners to get the price as low as posible, but I'd like to blind test a bunch of producers on this and see what the result is.
I might be wrong, but I've got pretty good ears, and I can't tell a whole lot of diff.

 

[Spelling Bee]

Ive owned a few pieces of Behringer gear over the years. While several have functioned well, several have not. And the ones that still to function as they were intended have started to collect dust as my ears have become more tuned. I did own (emphasis on did) an ADA8000 that I used for recording a live show. It was promptly returned the next day. It crackled and popped no matter how I set the clock configuration. The dealer told me it was the third ADA8000 return that week. In a nutshell, my dad always told me to "Buy the best you can afford. Youll rarely be dissapointed." In the audio realm, as with most other things, you get what you pay for. Ive learned the value of getting what I really want as opposed to having something similar when I want it. Patience is indeed a virtue, especially if you suffer from gear-whore-itis.

 

[blazingstrings]

Every now and again I like to interject my thoughts into this post take em or leave em.

I for one will say I have owned and own Behringer gear, is it the very best?
heck no but for what you pay for it and what it all does its a value.

I just bought a Tube COmposer used for $60 today now granted its not the best now but once I'm done modding it it will be killer.
But thats not to say all there stuff needs mod's.

There mixers are pretty clean and transparent.

So it isnt all bad.

-Blaze

 

[stalemayte]

I'm proud to say that I have never laid my hands on any behringer.

My parents warned me of the harmful side effects, and I just don't think its worth it.

I've heard behringer is also the 'gateway' cheap gear. Sure, just one piece of behringer won't hurt your sound too bad, hell, its so cheap, and it sounds ok......BAM! next thing you know, your pawning off all of your nice gear just to get more cheap gear.

stay clean.

 

[Tim Brown]

What the bloody FUCK are you talking about???????????????

I certainly wish someone would pay for my fucking gear, but so far, no one's stepped up.................

Who do you think buys the gear in pro studios? (answer: me being one of them - I can assure you, it's the owners.....)

Ultimately, the customers - otherwise you're in the wrong business.


Tim

 

[Tim Brown]

I find it funny how few people know the real story behind Behringer being "copies". There was only 1 line of mixer (I believe it was the MX series) that they were ever accused of backwards-engineering, and it was only certain things about the mixer....not the entire design. The case went to court, and I believe they were found guilty. Although most of their ideas are far from original, NOTHING they make is a copy of anything. There are a lot of mixers on the market that are very similar. It's almost imposable to find "unique" feathers on lower to mid end mixers. The V-amp is far from a copy of the Pod. The headphone amp is not a copy of any headphone I've ever come across. There are many examples.

Nope, That's just what they were successfully sued over. There were rumors concerning them reverse engineering some Aphex stuff, as well as possibly Drawmer's Punch Gate for their quad noise gate.


I have the quad gate and compressor, it's not bad for what it is, but it's definitely not in the same realm as top of the line Aphex and Drawner gear.

I mean, it is what it is - cheap equpiment.



Tim

 

[bikeless]

Just My 2 Cents - Flame me if you want.

I Deal Direct with a Behringer Importer and have had the greatest service.
I own a Vtone Guitar pack, Vintage guitar Pack, UB1002 Mixer, V-Amp, GI-Box and Plan to purchase more.I had problems with one of the guitars, I took it back to the Importer who gave me another one.

I know of two Home Recoring Studio's that only Use Behringer Equipemtn and have never had problems and the quility of the recorings are just as good as any other studio.

 

[ittam]

But You have the guarantee, of course and if they can´t fix it you
should get full refund.
Matti

Someone point me to the complaints forum! I'm so wound up!

Some of you may remember me talking about a problem I was having with one of my Behringer B2031 active monitors? That was about 6 weeks ago. The tweeter wasn't working right. As soon as the speaker would heat up, the tweeter would stop working. I bought it from Thomann in Germany. Thought I was getting a great deal until this happened.

I returned the speaker at a cost of €68 which I wont get back. After emailing them continuously for several weeks they finally got back and said my speaker had to go to Behringer 'coz they couldn't fix it. Fair enough I said, just send it back asap.

So, it came back today, I plugged it in and its even worse than before!! What'll I do now?? I emailed them a really strong email, said I wasnt taking this crap from them any longer but at the end of the day, what can I do?

Have any of you any experience with this sort of thing? I dont know what to do about it. I dont want to have to send it back to Germany again. Its not worth it. A local guy said he'd have a go at fixing it but I'll loose my warranty if I let him.

Thomann have a policy that they'll replace the product if its sent back within 30 days. I was in the US on holiday when the speaker arrived and by the time I got home and set it up, the 30 days were up! I got it back to them in 42 days.

Any help guys???

Mari

 

[ErikTheRed]

Mari, In case you have not already looked here, try this link to the Behringer webstie.
http://www.behringer.com/05_support/service_europe.cfm?lang=ENG
The company is very clear. If it's broke, they will fix it. I have a ton of Behringer gear. I buy it because it is cheap and it works. If anything breaks in warranty, my dealer in Geneva, Swizerland sends it off for repair and if it is out of warranty, I either fix it myself or buy a new one.

I am thinking of buying a pair of B2031As for my home studio.

If you want to see what I get up to with my Behringer gear then check kout my website. www.cdpsystems.ch This is not an advertisement. It is purely for interest.

May I suggest that you call the Behringer support number in Europe +49 2154 9206 0

I would also really appreciate hearing how you get on. My experience is that Behringer WILL fix or replace a broken unit under warranty. Good Luck - Pete

 

[Chris Tondreau]

I've had *one* problem with Behringer gear. My UB2442FX-PRO mixer got a bad channel about a week out of the box. I took it back to my retailer. Since I had already registered myself as the owner with that serial number, they couldn't do an even exchange. My retailer gave me a loaner (identical model), and sent mine off for repair. When it came back (and yes, it was fixed - two years later and nary a problem), I gave back the loaner and all was good. Cost to me = $0 and about 20 min. of downtime. Ah, well...

On a pro-rata basis, I have had more problems with M-Audio gear than Behringer gear. I certainly wouldn't say M-Audio is poorly made crap.

Chris

 

[twostone]

I own both Alesis and Behringer products I've never used the Behringer customer support but I have used Alesis on several occasions and Alesis tech support was totally awsome I had quick email responce and was able to talk live on the phone with a real tech. so it's hard for me to beleive that Alesis is on the shit list Behringer seems to be on everybody's shit list. So far all my Behringer gear has worked great and exactly does what it supposed to do. Alesis quickly resolved my issue's so I'm giving Alesis 5 star rating for customer support As for Behringer I know that most say their POS but I took my chances they do offer great bang for the buck deals but I knew that when I was buying the Behringer gear.Our local Behringer dealer doesn't hasitate with refunds or returns on the Behringer gear that's my 2 cents of input.

 

[innobidova]

My BG412S with Jensens has impeccable quality, besides the casters that were included. I've also used a small Behringer mixer extensively, and had no problems with it. I've heard too many horror stories, however, and I now try to steer away from cheap products all together.

 

[SuperGeek]

I Have just two peices of Behringer gear

A MDX2600
Over a year old no problems used daily for a low powered FM transmitter.
Stops over modulation.

and a LD2412
A DMX 24 channel light board plus First 12 channels are also 0-10 analog out put

Use it mostly for LED lighting experiments and XMAS Halloween ect.

Did have some issues with it like flash button #1 was working intermittently.
Took it back to the dealer and in two weeks got it back and they replaced 2 more flash buttons a total of 3.

its been behaving now for over a year.

I did use the Behringer web site for help as wll and got good info from there as well if needed they were going to send me a firmware update in the mail if i needed it, but it was current so it was not needed.

I may never buy that brand again but so far so good with my two peices

 

[Nakatira]

I work at a Music store.
And we got the Behringer "cheapo" pedal series, a few months ago.
So far there`s been 6 defects out of 14, not bad eyh.
some of the ones that escaped scraping, were just scraping the surface of the lid.

Last ones I tried were the electro harmonix knock offs, and It wasent pretty

Næh, I`d go with any other brand

 

[Mindset]

I have a UB1222-FX and a Composer 2600 and both have been working fine, no faults, I got them off of musiciansfriend.com. I wouldn't get a mic from behringer though, or anything else

 

[MISTERQCUE]

I have a UB1222-FX and a Composer 2600 and both have been working fine, no faults, I got them off of musiciansfriend.com. I wouldn't get a mic from behringer though, or anything else

I wouldn;t even by dish detergent from Behringer!

 

[Mindset]

lol I know there's a wholeee lot better equipment out there, but for me, money was an issue, so whenever I have a whole lot more money to spend, I'll be getting the better things in life. but for now, maybe my POS equipment serves me well

 

[buryher17]

due to the fact ive been online for like 5 hours doing mixing and such, and that this thread is 8 pages long.. i didnt read it all

BUT

I just have to say, behringer has NEVER steared me wrong. It's so unbeleivably affordable, and has 199% more thna what it even needs. I bought a 16 line mixer 2 years ago when i first started my studio just thinking it was cool looking. AT first i only needed 5 inputs, dynamic mic's were used no big deal.

Now, thank god for it, it has built in mic pre amps, phantom power, equilizer, gains, level's, everything. Converters, 101 different ways to connect monitors/ in's out's whatever. It's been my base of eveyrhting for myr ecordings, and has always given me new idea's when recording.

I have a few things i've used in the past of behringer and always added color to my mix.

I plan on buying a headphone amp from them, and a new equilizer, and im not scared at all about either.

 

[fraserhutch]

I have a few things i've used in the past of behringer and always added color to my mix.

I don't know that I would call that "color"...