Behringer gear

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goldtop

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Why are quite a few people around here knocking Behringer gear? Having seen a lot of Behringer stuff in use, I have to say that i think it does a pretty good job AT THE PRICE POINT. note the last phrase. dont expect it to do the job of something ten times its price, but do appreciate what a good job they are doing at opening up the world of home recording to people on a tight budget.
 
Agreed, totally. Sure, they're not going to compete with name brands like Neve, Avalon, Royer, Neumann, Drawmer, etc., but they'll often even beat the pants off items at twice their own price point. If it wasn't for Behringer, I'd probably just now be getting past my Realistic DJ mixer, using my guitar processor for compression, and using Y-adapters to route headphones. As it is, I've got three years worth of digital recording experience from which to draw. I've upgraded my mixer, though still went with another Behringer (UB2442-FX Pro), and am still using my Headphone amp and Compressor from them..... and the ECM8000 sd condensor mics.

Chris
 
goldtop said:
Why are quite a few people around here knocking Behringer gear? Having seen a lot of Behringer stuff in use, I have to say that i think it does a pretty good job AT THE PRICE POINT. note the last phrase. dont expect it to do the job of something ten times its price, but do appreciate what a good job they are doing at opening up the world of home recording to people on a tight budget.

No disrespect to my dawg, Chris T., but gimme a break!!

How many more "Is Behringer Gear Good?" type threads do we have to suffer thru?:( :mad: :(
 
Re: Re: Behringer gear

Mustafa Salaam said:
No disrespect to my dawg, Chris T., but gimme a break!!

How many more "Is Behringer Gear Good?" type threads do we have to suffer thru?:( :mad: :(

Ha, deadly! I know, i know, its getting a bit old. As one of the culprits responsible for starting 'yet another Behringer thread', I apologise :)

Hey, is there any chance we could all get done for slander?
 
No offence or disrespect taken. I'm not the one starting the threads. I've noticed that they are coming up more and more these days too, and I find myself saying the same things over and over again. It does get a bit tiresome.

Chris
:(
 
is behringer good? my friends, uncles, brothers, half sisters, cousin, said that they only used behringer gear on the last rolling stones album. Is this true? Is the behringer T1952 as good as a neve 1073?

All kidding aside....I own a behringer pathcbay...works good. But yeah these threads are getting tiresome...
 
John Mayes said in jest.... "my friends, uncles, brothers, half sisters, cousin, said that they only used behringer gear on the last rolling stones album. Is this true...."

There is a lot of unfounded rhetoric on pretty much anything on the net - including whether or not Behringer is any good, and whether they were REALLY sued for ripping of Mackie, etc.

A couple of things I can substantiate are this:

1. In an issue of Recording magazine (I'll look up the specific issue volume/date if anyone REALLY wants me to provide it :rolleyes: ), there is a feature article on Bon Jovi's producer. He does not specify which unit, but he says he uses Behringer compressors because he really likes the sound of them. I don't expect that he's looking for "bang for the buck" stuff.

2. I've asked at the busiest music store (Pongetti's in Hamilton) in the moderately large city I live in (a little over 500 000), and at what may be the most famous (maybe the busiest...??) store in Canada (Steve's in Toronto), about Behringer gear. The question I asked was roughly "Do you find that you get more Behringer gear returned by the consumer as defective than gear from other manufacturers?" In both cases, the answer was roughly, "We get some stuff back, but I don't think really any more from them than from anyone else."

Obviously, I can't substantiate #2 except that I can name actual store that I asked at, and yes, I DID ask the person on duty in their knowledgeable recording departments. This may be a situation of YMMV if you try it yourself at your local music store, but I'd be interested in hearing the results.

If you're looking for information that goes beyond the rhetoric of the whole Behringer/Mackie lawsuit and actually pursues the facts, check out https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74439&highlight=behringer+mackie+lawsuit. I found info substantiated by websites that appear rather credible.

Chris
 
Chris Tondreau said:
2. I've asked at the busiest music store (Pongetti's in Hamilton) in the moderately large city I live in (a little over 500 000), and at what may be the most famous (maybe the busiest...??) store in Canada (Steve's in Toronto), about Behringer gear. The question I asked was roughly "Do you find that you get more Behringer gear returned by the consumer as defective than gear from other manufacturers?" In both cases, the answer was roughly, "We get some stuff back, but I don't think really any more from them than from anyone else."
I've had a similar conversation with the guys at Steve's in Ottawa - when it comes up, there's usually a rolling of the eyes and shake of the head, followed by "...yeah, a lot of that shit comes back - it's disposable audio!"
 
So, I wonder then.... The guy at Pongetti's that I asked about it added that they don't like to stock stuff that customers are habitually dis-satisfied with. It makes the retailer look bad too when the customer buys stuff that the store recommends, and then has to return it because it doesn't work.

Chris
 
Regardless of returns, they sell an awful lot of it... it seems most people will take their chances with it -- apparently "cheap & short-lived" wins out over "quality long-term" for most.
 
Hmm.... interesting....

So I see two possibilities here.

1. They sell "an awful lot of it" and "a lot of that shit comes back." I'm wondering, then, if porportionally compared to other brands that might not sell as many units, if any more Behringer stuff really comes back than anyone else's product.

2. They sell an awful lot of it. It's crap, short lived, and a lot of it comes back. What kind of reputation does Steve's in Ottawa have?

... unless the consumers themselves don't care about short-lived crap that didn't work, so long as they saved a few bucks.... but then again, they cared enough to return it.... hmm....

Chris
 
Steve's is the best place in town to buy gear.... but everything I buy they pretty much have to order in.... they have racks of Behringer stuff on their floor though!
 
I've got a buddy who is very talented. He recently got an ear education. I loaned him a couple of condensers. He brought them back within a few days saying he couldn't hear any difference between them and his lone condenser.

He upgraded to a Digi 002 shortly thereafter.

Steve
www.mojopie.com
 
ozraves said:
I've got a buddy who is very talented. He recently got an ear education. I loaned him a couple of condensers. He brought them back within a few days saying he couldn't hear any difference between them and his lone condenser.

He upgraded to a Digi 002 shortly thereafter.

Steve
www.mojopie.com

'Nuff said rite there!!!!
 
My band's drummer and an an other friend are both working at Montreal's Steve's store. And yes, they are selling a LOT of Behringer.

I personnaly cant afford Neve, Avalon, etc gear, and, honestely, the 1st reason why I dont buy Behringer stuff anymore (i had a MDX2100, MDX2200 and I still have a PowerPlay Pro for headphones) is that it doesnt "look" nice in the rack, because everyone "think" it's crappy gear.

In fact, yes, it's kind of cheap-crappy equipement, but it doesnt mean you cant get good, even excellent results with it. I regret the fact that I sold my MDX2200 compressor. It was very usefull. I sold it cuz I thought I was able to get better results with my Yamaha 01V's compressor but... no way. Well, not on drums and vocals.

I dont like EVERY Behringer products, of course. But almost every manufacturer make crappy items.

It's home recording on this forum, I'm not shure everyone here can say he record his vocals with a U47 thru an RED 7 Focusrite mic pre, right in his own huge Protools|HD setup.

So, I think I may should change my mind and try and buy some Behringer stuff again.

It obviously not world's best gear, but it certainely can be VERY usefull for many....MANY of us.

Keep also in mind that they copy their gear from other companies...so they dont do a lot of developpement, this mean it's less expensive for them to make some equipement, less expensive for us to buy it.
 
Chris Tondreau said:
1. In an issue of Recording magazine (I'll look up the specific issue volume/date if anyone REALLY wants me to provide it :rolleyes: ), there is a feature article on Bon Jovi's producer. He does not specify which unit, but he says he uses Behringer compressors because he really likes the sound of them.
Chris

So that's why the Bon Jovi albums sounds like crap.

I use Behringer for some stuff... I'm thinking headphone amps, patchbays etc.
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
Steve's is the best place in town to buy gear.... but everything I buy they pretty much have to order in.... they have racks of Behringer stuff on their floor though!

Ottawa is a fairly large city, so to say that Steve's is the best place in town probably accurately suggests a certain amount of credibility. Also, I believe that they are affilliated with Steve's in Toronto (same sign, no?), which also gives them credibility. That was the very reason I asked Steve's in Toronto. I was obviously not buying anything that day, so the person there had nothing to gain by feeding me a line. What I did want to check out was that if the store I usually deal with was handing me a line, just so I could "buy now" whenever I went in there. Steve's answer only re-inforced what my store told me. In Toronto, though, they have tonnes of other stuff in-stock - a little something for everyone: Avalon, Focusrite, Alesis, Behringer, Joe Meek....

So.... they are a reputable store and they sell tonnes of Behringer stuff. The question is "why?" Are they recommending it? If it's crap, what are they doing to dissuade the buyer from buying stuff that will make them look bad, and instead, selling the customer a product that they will ultimately be happy with? Why do they even have so much of it in stock in the first place? They should just say "Behringer stuff is crap, but it's cheap. If you want cheap, we can order it for you and it will be here by the middle of next week."

The store I deal with recommends a lot of their stuff - given what the customer wants the product to do and their expected price range. They will tell you about other products that you might also be interested. I have every reason to believe their honesty. Two cases:

1. I have $1500 to spend. Should I upgrade my PII466 computer with Cubase VST/24 to Cubase SX, which will require me to buy a new computer. Or.. should I upgrade my Delta 44 soundcard and Behringer MX802 mixer to either an Aardvark Q10 or a Delta 1010 with another mixer - which may require a little more saving? He recommended the SX and computer upgrade first, which makes them absolutely no money whatsoever. He said later that he could get an Aardvark in for me instead if I wanted, but they don't stock them anymore, as customers have been less than happy with them. He even offered me the phone number (studio business, not his private #) of a client who owned one (a former major-label recording act) that I could discuss it with further. His recommendation meant the store making the money eventually, but not after I bought other products that they would make nothing from, and after I saved up a bit more money for the UB2442FX-Pro that I would need after buying the Delta1010.

2. An earlier story.... I went in to buy my first mixer - the Behringer one mentioned above - the MX802. I was expecting to pay more, as I had priced the little Mackie ones. He sold me the cheaper of the two products, as they were of basically the same quality, and one would save me a lot of money. If I was dissatisfied, he told me to bring it back, and I could exchange it by merely paying the difference between the two boards.

Hmm....

Ozraves... an interesting post, but maybe I'm missing what you're trying to say. I don't see the relevance to this thread.

Kryogh - good point.

Stefan E.- I've never heard anyone complain about the sound quality of Bon Jovi albums. They sound good to my ears.

Chris
 
Chris Tondreau, thx!

hey, I think my english is certainely getting better with this forum :)
 
I think it depends on who and what is recording! If you are a drummer who's been playing for 2 months that wants to record your practice sessions, a top notch Neve compressor ain't gonna make a difference over a Behringer. Then, consider recording knowhow (or lack thereof), then the room, the monitors, the insrument quality and so on! I think most low line gear like Beringer is okay to use depending on the rest of your surroundings.

I'm 100% sure that at one time or another, we've all listened to an mp3 in the mp3 forum and marvelled at someone's recording that had a Behringer somewhere in the track.
As we get to be better recordists and musicians, our tastes change and we demand better quality. Behringer is a perfect product for a budget minded newbie. It's decent for a budget minded novice.
 
One must always keep in mind when asking music stores for recommendations regarding gear is that profit margin will nine times out of ten drive said recommendation . Another point that drives this is what is floor stock , meaning does the retailer have to pay the vendor a percentage for the gear that is sitting on the shelf . The longer a piece of gear sits on the shelf the better chance the consumer has of negotiating a better sale price . My basic rule of thumb is NEVER pay retail ! Most times retailers will also match the competitions price it is always a good idea to shop around and if possible get printed quotes. Personally all this gear talk is kind of a moot point as a tool is only as good as the the person operating it and the leval of perfomance .
 
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