Who's cheap gear do you trust the most?

[dawg2k5]

Behringer.
Nothing is better for the price.
A lot of people just thinks it's crap because it's cheap.
It's not the best, but for the money it is.

 

[Alexbt]

Behringer is very hit or miss, from all the reviews I've heard. If you're lucky, you might get a quality product. I'm willing to guess that their higher end gear is more reliable, but I'm not buying anything from them unless I hear good reviews from people on this board.

(I can't trust feedback on zZounds or Musician's Friend, because they may have not used the product enough or long enough)

Anyways, Peavey would be my vote out of that list. I own a M-Audio Delta 1010LT, and as far as I know, all my inputs work OK, but this is my second one (both were factory resealed, the first one had input problems).
I've never gotten MIDI to work correctly on either card. It works for a while, then gets stuck (holding down the keys) and needs a restart to fix. Tech support insisted that it was my processor not being fast enough. I plugged in a Midiman/now M-Audio MIDISPORT 2X2, and it works fine.
Maybe when I update to 10.4 I'll get it working...

 

[The Axis]

Behringer is very hit or miss, from all the reviews I've heard.

Not directed at you personally, but just that you have provided such a good exanmple:
I think this is a major problem with this and all internet boards. Some people develop the habit of passing along "hearsay evidence", without having personal experience with the equipment.

Keep in mind that there are lots of people inhabiting these boards who SELL EQUIPMENT, or are trying to sell, have friends who do. They have a big incentive to downgrade inexpensive equipment and hype their own equipment. Also, naturally, there is a big incentive to hype a $2K piece of equipment and denegrate a $200 rival.

Just something to keep in mind.

 

[snatchman]

Well for what its worth, (I'll get booted off the forum for this.. ) I have some "older" Behringer gear ( the gear with the SIP op-amps) that still works and sounds comparable (sometimes better) than some of the newer manufacturers claims for today.! The Behringer gear has never stopped working since 1995'ish and still works in my racks today. Can't say that about some of the other vendors gear though..!

 

[MONKEY!]

Peavey, but never try to get it repaired.

 

[Deaj]

I've only owned a few Peavey items but I know many people who own Peavey gear and their stuff seems to last. Great value too!

 

[goodbyebluesky]

My Peavey Classic Chorus 212 guitar amp is about 10 years old and its been used for gigging w/guitar, as a p.a. for vocals in one of my old band's practice space, and more recently I've run my rack into the power amp inputs, bypassing the preamp.
Never had a single problem until this last week when the power amp section started acting funny when it warmed up. So my Peavey finally died and I have an excuse to move into a cabinet but...... I'm gonna miss those Scorpion speakers. Celestion 30s just sound fuzzy to me in comparison. Maybe I'll move them over to something else.
My first guitar was a Peavey Tele copy. Better quality than what Fender pushes out of foreign countries now.
Live on Peavey gear. It might be generic sometimes, and it might be on the cheaper side of pro gear, but its not junk.

 

[DogFood]

of the given choices I went wif Carvin, cause I recently had to repair a Peavey bass combo. What a giant pain in the ass. Couldn't be done. So, I guess Carvin wins by default. The rest is outside my domain, however recently a buddy got a Behringer mixer, a little inexpensive number, works fine, sounds reasonable for practice studio mixing, don't know if I'd record with it.

 

[joel77]

I voted for Carvin. I've used their gear for years and have always been satisfied with the build quality. I can reasonably say the same about the many pieces of Peavey gear I have, but I tend to like Carvin better in general. I've always had pleasant experiences when dealing with them.

Behringer gear has not been quite as up to par as other "budget" gear I've used. Though I've owned several Behringer products over the years, I've also had some go bad. Of course the severe depreciation in value needs to be taken into account.

The others I've never owned.

Joel

 

[GearGeek]

Carvin Verses Jbl

I haven't used a lot of Carvin gear, but what I have seen, I have been impressed with.

I run pair of unpowered JBL EON 1500's in my PA system and push them with a powered Yamaha board. To get better coverage in live venues I needed to add an additional pair of speakers. I suffered over thinking about purchasing a matching set of the EON's at around $400 each. Carvin had just come out with their light weight PM15's at $199.00 each (which are fairly compatible in power handling and weight with the EON's), so I gambled and bought a pair.
When I put them side by side and AB'd them with the EONs, the Carvin's sounded much cleaner with a punchier low end. Even my wife and the sound engineer from my church picked the Carvin's over the JBL's in an A-B test.

At less than half the price, the Carvin's win hands down.

GearGeek

 

[maestro_dmc]

I've noted a little bit nicer overall sound from my Carvins than from my comparable JBL M-Pro's.

My concern with the Carvin's is the tweeters don't take much to kill. The JBL's seem to take a lot more abuse. Haven't killed one yet anyway.

 

[monty]

Wish I hadn't sold that little Peavey amp I had.

 

[ermghoti]

my behringer headphones work only in one ear..









...all three pairs.

Do both of your ears work? Just checking

 

[jeffree]

Easy question for me. When I think about my 30 years of buying and selling equipment, much of it lower end, I have nothing but praise for my Yamaha gear (both electronics and instruments). Other gear-specific companies I've been especially happy with recently are M-Audio and Studio Projects.

So nothing for me to vote for in this poll.

J.

 

[thegunshyboy]

another vote for ART. i've had alot of stuff from them, and it's always been dependable. i noticed alot of write ins for m-audio, which was surprising to me considering nearly everything i've ever bought from m-audio was a steaming pile o' poo.

 

[guido #2]

you forgot to list Mackie

 

[jaykeMURD]

I voted Behringer.....I've used their stuff, and for amateurs, Berri does fine. Yes, Mackie's cheaper line of products, mixers mainly, are awesome.

Plus, if I vote Behringer, someone that posts after me will make a NEGATIVE comment about Behringer OR me......and that's funny!

 

[Henry Mars]

I am not a fan of the Pevey sound. I hate their amps, but I own 5 of them, mostly guitar amps. Some of them are almost 30 years old and they still work and I still use them regularly. I don't think I will replace them though because it is about time I had an amp that sounds the way I like it to sound. I don't think the average listener would know good sound if it walked up and bit them on the ass. That is why I still am using my old Peavey amps. I had some vintage gear ruined at a gig once and I will never bring the good stuff out live again.

I used Kustom amps for several years in 60's and early 70's ... you couldn't kill them either.
All in all I love Crown Power amps. Ampeg and Traynor guitar amps. On a live gig a Peavey board works fine. I use Berhinger boards too and haven't had any trouble. As I said."joe" listener couldn't tell the difference anyway.

When recording on the other hand I think you have to avoid cheap gear whenever possible because ... "play backs are bitch".

 

[pohaku]

Symetrix. Otherwise, from your list -- Peavey, but only if it is the AMR stuff (VMP-2 Preamp, VC/L-2 compressor, Tube Sweetener).

 

[cpl_crud]

i work in a fairly upscale live venue and alot of times we get tech riders that while stating band FOH needs they also stat NO peavey mains or monitor wedges for their act.

This is more than likely a sponsorship problem. It's more common that you think...
Norwest Australia was forced to buy a brand new Funktion-One system for some tour they did out here, but, of course, everyone hates the Funktion so it rarely gets used...

Tour gear sponsorship is as rampant in the tech world as it is in the backline world.

Oh yeah, and the only thing I own out of any of the brands above are the Behringer Cables tester (i needed one in a hurry) and a Peavy multicore (12/4- never failed me... but I was given it as a "here, buy our gear" present... payola if you will).

I have also used a couple of the Peavy amps in a past life... they seemed fine for live gigs where all you wanted was a DJ pumping out the SPL, but any time I needed a bit of clarity I'd hire an EAW system and bill the client... (the client was the military so they didn't seem to care)