Behringer B2031A and Mackie HR824 monitors...

K

KingDiamond

New member
So the other week one of my Behringer B2031A monitors got damaged when one of the neutral lines in my house somehow shorted and sent 220V to all of my audio gear. Luckily :rolleyes: the only thing damaged was one Behringer B2031A monitor. So I took it in to a electronics repair place not far away from here where I usually get my tube amps to get serviced. The guy first looked at it and wrote down Mackie because he thought it was a Mackie monitor. I told him Behringer and he said "oh Behringer makes the copies so well". So he grabs the speaker and opens it up and on another worktable he has a Machine HR824 laying there taken apart. I was surprised at the similarities between the two. The internal construction is pretty much exactly the same, dimensions are the same, and even the electronics inside look the same. I wish I heard the two side by side just to be able to tell the difference in sound.

I'm pretty happy with the Behringer B2031A monitors, I've had them for two years and this is the first problem I experienced, and I guess it's not really behringer's fault either because it was a house wiring problem. I just don't get how Behringer can sell a pair of these monitors for $300 while the Mackie's cost $1000 for a pair, is the fact that the Mackies are made in the USA the reason they're so much more expensive?
 
The Mackie's are more expensive because they did all the R&D that went into the making of that monitor. The Behringers are less expensive because they stole Mackies' design (no R&D expenses when doing that) and use cheaper parts.
 
i always figured, due to the model #, that the behringers were a ripoff of the genelec 1030/1031

but who knows...maybe mackie copped genelec's design??
 
1031a.jpg


b2031.jpg


example...
 
Ironklad - my god that is a shocking example! :eek: So blatantly copied. I never knew they copied the visual design too...how do they get away with it?!
 
The first thing I did when I got mine was to remove the behringer logo in the lower right corner. They sound much better now.
 
I think the Mackies have a bit more in the electronics too. FSR and negative feedback..I don't recall the details. It was really a lot of design and quality went into those original sets. A GC rep said the new ones from China aren't the same and they've gotten numerous returns and fails.

And the HR824's have the passive radiator instead of the ports (which many don't care for the "breathing" bass created by ports or "mud" bass). Same as the ..and Barefoot MicroMains which are a frkn dream design.

yeah, the Behringer probably copied the Genelec's as in the pic of Ironklad.
The 2031a's have gotten some good posts. Its kind of bs imo....to blatantly copy like that geez? I guess there's not much patent laws on this stuff.

for $300 range.. I'd throw in a few more small bucks and get the YSM1P's. :D
 

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Nope

We owned the Behringers. I cannot make a statement on their construction similarities or differences with the Mackies. We don't use Mackies. I can only say that when we moved over to Blue Sky Pro Desks, our mixes improved in every respect -- and dramatically.

One has no idea of information missing on a lesser monitor. The Behringer Truth is that they can pack a volume whallop but left us working in the dark compared to the Pro Desks.

You cannot correct what you don't hear. Don't try to figure out the merits of a clone by how the parts LOOK. Go listen to your mixes on other monitors and see what you've been guessing at on the Behringers.

This has been our experience and we haven't looked back.
 
A friend is about to buy the 2030 passive to be used with a Kentwood vintage amp.
I have many behringer products and they surely look like other well known gear. Their B-2 is probably a copy of the Neumann U87, it looks a lot the same and I think they even have the same features.
Not that I have a problem with that, as long as it sounds good, and they do.
 
The electronics repair guy called me today and said some IC's and the power supply are burned, it would cost as much to repair as it costs to buy a new speaker. I think I'm gonna start looking for some new monitors. The Behringer B2031A's were decent but I just listened to some KRK RP8's the other day and they blew away the Behringer's in detail.
 
I would check into your power more carefully. The problem you described does not sound very realistic and you don't want to damage something else.

I can not beleive I am about to say this, but I am about to partially stick up for Behriger here. The pictures shown above do not seem all that similar to the Genelec to me that it would be considered infringement. I know that Behringer has had some issues with this, but just the visual aspect is not what I care about. I do not however agree with the reverse engineering and dumbing down/copying for profit though.
 
The funny thing is that Behringer put in a 220V main fuse in the power supply for these monitors, so they must use the same units for both international and domestic use. I just don't get why the 220V fried this monitor, it did nothing to the other one.
 
Well I just got a pair of the KRK RP6-CL monitors. They are the same as the normal RP-6's except these have silver woofers and the logos are in a mirror finish instead of yellow. They look great and the sound is great too. There are major differences between this and the Behringer B2031A's in sound quality. There is this one part in one song that our drummer counts down 3-2-1 and you couldn't even hear it on the Behringers, but I could always hear it on my friend's $15,000 Focal home theater system. Well I can finally hear the same thing on the KRK monitors. They have much more detail, especially in the mids.

I used to swear by the Behringers, now I think I'm gonna tell everyone to spend an extra $100 and get something better.
 
COOLCAT said:
And the HR824's have the passive radiator instead of the ports (which many don't care for the "breathing" bass created by ports or "mud" bass). Same as the ..and Barefoot MicroMains which are a frkn dream design.
Click to expand...

Thanks CC. However, my speakers don't have passive radiators. They are all active drivers in sealed boxes. I don't like passive radiators because they have even worse transient response than ported speakers - i.e. muddier. Sealed designs offer the best transient response and more low frequency information for a given cutoff frequency. Of course, the challenge is developing the technology to make a sealed box go so deep. ;)

sealed-vs-ported.jpg
 
yes, I meant they aren't ported.

"sealed"
Blue Sky's have the sealed cabinets too.... interesting chart, but a "tight" low end is it!! I think ports measure low, but many I've heard don't have the "real" bass, ports are more like someone blowing "air in a tube" sound... it never sounds like my bass guitar in other words, or the "real" kick drum.

thats why I liked your design so well, the sub, amp and all the mid and tweeters..the entire freq's in a "sealed" cabinet and yet still Nearfield, no sub sitting 20ft over in a corner under a table etc..in the EE triangle where the bass is supposed to be in nearfield.. as I understand it.?

thats where I want the sound on Nearfields right in the EE triangle, so even with a Blue Sky Sat setup, I'd probably put the sub up on a table in between the Sats somehow...I don't know, something...not over in the corner I've done that too and it measures fine...but the bass in the EE 3ft area/1meter is cool.

KD sounds like you like your RP6's, and a really nice playback system to check your mixes on...:D
 
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