Emmett said:
What you should buy really depends on your needs and how serious you are about quality.
Agreed, but it also depends on what you are going to do with it.
Emmett said:
I would not recommend Behringer for any type of professional work. Any more, Behringer gear can sound pretty good, but the build quality is absolutely horrible. The pots suck and all the internal parts are cheap.
It is not my intent to either encourage or discourage anyone from using Behringer gear, but I am curious about your response. It is a very common one that I think is built mostly on "urban legend." Have you ever actually looked inside anything made by Behringer? I sure have. I used to be a dealer for them, Mackie, Yamaha, Tascam, Alesis, Peavey, JBL, Allen & Heath, Midas, Samson, Soundcraft, QSC, Crown and another 50-75 other well known brands of audio equipment. We even had an on site service department so digging in the bowels of things wasn't uncommon. I'm still enough of a technician to know which end of a soldering iron to hang on to.
In my opinion, Behringer products are built as well or even better than many more expensive brands. The PC boards all use Surface Mount technology, as does just about anyone else in the business. They are hard to service, but no worse than most other entry to mid level products. If you are wiling to notch the price level up about 10 db, you will find quite a different story, but I’m assuming we are talking in the under $5-600 price category. In the case of Behringer, it may be WAY under that price point. Very little electronic equipment is serviceable these days. Behringer's pots seem to be sourced from Panasonic. They are not horrible, but they aren't a Penny & Giles either. They are simply short throw faders, just like Mackie, Alesis, Samson, low end Yamaha, etc. I think you will find the rotary faders are similar, and come from the same suppliers that most "pro-sumer" equipment uses. Most controls like this are specified by the manufacturer as having 20% tolerance. That may be why you say the pots suck. I’d prefer 100 mm Penny and Giles, ore even Alps farers, but that would certainly impact the price. Have you priced a P&G fader recently?
Admittedly, because of the pots one channel may appear to have slightly more gain at the same point than another, but that isn't uncommon on almost any low priced mixer. Because of the tolerance issue, you may get lucky and get some that are great. Then there is the possibility that you get one really is out of whack. That's why it is a good idea to purchase from a dealer who had a decent return policy. If you get one that is several inconsistent, return it to the dealer for another one. That goes for any brand.
One of the things Behringer has going for it is a lack of wall warts. Most of their small mixers do use an external power supply, but theirs are at least a "lump on the line" style, rather that the cheaper "wall wart." They are a lot easier to deal with. As far as I know, all of their rack mount stuff uses internal power supplies with fairly beefy torriodal power transformers, rather than a cheap switching supply. I look at that a s a sign of quality, not cheapness. Power is connected via a conventional detachable IEC style power cord. It sure beats yet another wall wart.
As for internal build quality, it usually looks pretty good. There is not always a lot to look at inside, but you’ll find that to be common in most electronics these days. What is there is well laid out, the wiring is neat and tidy, and it is mechanically sound. The connectors are decent quality, and the designs are usually ingenious enough to allow for a lot of versatility.
Add to that the fact that these things are so inexpensive that you question how they even got them stateside, they can be an excellent value. That low price also makes them disposable, and they should be considered that way. No repair shop can survive without billing about $60-80 per hour these days, so it makes no sense to consider repairing a $99 mixer that will take a couple of hours to fix. Such are the times we live in, and that is true for all products, not just Behringer's.
In the time that I was in the pro-audio sales business (nearly 35years) we had on average, less problems with Behringer products than most. Failures and returns were considerably less than 1% which beat a lot of much more expensive products that people seem to hold near and dear. Usually, if the device worked out of the box, it would be fine for quite some time. When and if it failed, you simply replaced it with another. By that time, there was usually a new and improved model that you wanted anyway, so it is of little consequence.
Bottom line is, Behringer is not a high end product, and was never intended to be. It is a very adequate product, like many others, some of which cost a lot more. In fact, I think some of the more expensive choices are actually worse, especially when it comes to reliability. If you are a professional VO guy building your dream studio, I certainly wouldn't expect you to be using a Behringer. That's why companies like Allen & Heath, Soundcraft and Midas exist. Yet I know of several small market stations that use them in production and on the air, just like the Mackie. Both products fill a niche. If you are sitting at home and trying to put together a small studio they are certainly worthy of your consideration.
By the way, I sold my sound company nearly six years ago, so I don't have anything to gain one way or the other. The new owners don't owe me a dime, but they do report that some of the new Behringer products have been very good at prices that are hard to argue with.
