What's everyone think about the Behringer controversey?

[bassist_25]

This gets frequently dicussed on a bass-related board that I visit often.

If anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about: Behringer has a reputation for copying the products of other companies verbatim. Their mixing boards were based on Mackie designs (which I believe Mackie sued them over and won); their power amps are based on QSC amps; their bass amps are copies of Ashdowns; their new cabinets are obviously based on Hartke designs; etc.

I was just wondering what everyone's take on this is. I don't have much experience with their equipment, but I've always been impressed with those little Behringer mixing boards. I'm of the school of thought that if a product isn't patented, then it's up to the market to decide i.e. if Behringer's product is inferior, the original design will eventually prove itself. I really don't know if the products being copied are patented or not. Still, I've been very tempted to purchase one of their power amps (especially since everyone that's ever had one and didn't get caught up in the ethical debate has said they are solid amps), but there's still part of me that feels kind of ambivalent about buying one. And I'm one of those existentialist types that would sit and philosophical attack the "ethical" person. *LOL*

Anyways, I just wanted to have a discussion about this and was interested in everyone else's take.

[tonefight]

I have a Behringer compressor / gate and it hasn't failed yet, I didn't like the feedback destroyers but they were well made also. Other than that I haven't bought much of there stuff because its not U.S. made wich I try to stick to and its so damn cheap that I'm afraid its not gonna last. If they continue to have staying power I may make some small purchases in the future.

As far as the copycat thing goes, I think that happens in every market and in the end the strong survive so we'll see.

I remember something about Ibanez getting sued for a LesPaul copy long ago also.

[Brian of the Clan Plush]

We use Behringer mics, passive subs (single 18s), 31 band EQs, and a powered mixer (the Europower 5000 - 20 channels - 12 XLR, 800 watts bridged). The rest of our PA gear is Yamaha and Peavey

The mics are superb - I like them better than 58's for live vocals

The subs are adequate, but don't have much "headroom" bewteen nice chunky thump with lots of presence and clipping - they work better with a Sonic Maximizer in use.

The powered mixer is fantastic for the price - I paid $650, which is dirt cheap for a 20 channel board powered by dual 400 watt amps. My last board was a Mackie CFX-16 which I still have but never use.
Honestly I almost never use the built in amps on the Behringer because the wattage isn't high enough to drive my speakers. I sometimes use one side to drive one of the monitor mixes.

The things I love about the mixer are: it has dual onboard FX that are actually very good. Many of the factory presets are useful combinations like chorus and delay, or chorus and reverb, so you can put two effects on a channel and still have the other FX engine free to assign different FX to other channels. Its like 4 separate FX processors. Its also got visual feedback detection on the LED equipped 7-band graphic EQ. I use the feedback lights to quickly narrow down the range and then ring it out using a 31 band outboard EQ (also a Behringer). The preamps are incredibly quiet, as is the whole unit. Solidly built and incredibly light.

The things I don't like: its only got 2 monitor sends, and becuase the FX are internal there are no FX sends that can be shang-hi'ed for use as a 3rd or 4th monitor send. Also the only speaker outputs for the internal amps are Speakon, so I had to purchase some Speakon -> 1/4 jumper cables.

Its got some not-entirely useful value-added stuff, like a voice canceller to strips vocal being piped through from CD's or mp3 - somewhat useful for practicing vocals or doing karaoke I guess. There's also an XPQ surround-sound simulator that probably work off the same logic as an aural exciter. Never used it.

Overall, I love the mixer and consider it a good use of limited funds even without using the amps much. I was skeptical for a long time about Behringer's "too good to be true" prices, but after a couple years with this gear, I'm convinced their stuff is solid.

....my 2 beans

[bassist4life2004]

I have a behringer UB1202 mixing board. It is an awesome little board for home recording and acoustic shows. I use it all the time, it was cheap, and works very well. Mackie boards are great, dont get me wrong, but I believe that i got a great deal on the Behringer that I have, and it hasnt failed me yet!

[redawg]

I use one of their quad gates and a quad compressor. I haven't had a problem with either of them. I know there are better sounding compressors out there but the Behringer gets the job done. One thing I like about Behringer's gates is they are more tweakable. Some gates I've seen only have a threshold and an output volume. I like to have the range, hold and release controls. I don't like Behringer's PA heads that much. No headroom at all. The individual channels clip like crazy before you get any real sound out of them. I think other companies prices are getting way too out of control on all musical gear. Maybe companies like Behringer will force them to bring down their prices a bit. I remember when the smaller Mackie mixers came out. They didn't cost nearly what they do now. I know the sound of them is awsome but come on. Have to re finance the house just to buy gear anymore. I've seen some of Ashdown's price lists along with many other high end companies. Some amp heads are sporting $3,000. price tags these days. Alot of it just comes down to paying for a name. I say if it sounds good, use it no matter what brand it is or how much it cost. Paiste's cymbal prices are way out of control too. Not too many years ago you could pick up one of their Signature 16" crashes brand new for $135.00. Check out the price now. They're more like $225.00 now. Their Dark Energy Hi Hats sell for $420.00+ in some catalogs. It just doesn't seem fair or right for these companies to be charging us this kind of money for any kind of gear.

[bassist_25]

I remember something about Ibanez getting sued for a LesPaul copy long ago also.

Which is funny: The people shitting their pants over it have probaly owned a Strat copy or a Jazz Bass copy sometime in their lifetime. I think the main issue is that Behringer doesn't have to do research and development; they just wait for another company to do the leg-work and then take the design.

But I have to agree with RedDawg on this. Some gear is so over priced, IMHO, especially anything with tubes in it. I dig tubes, though I'm not a die hard tube lover like a lot of guys. But I'll be buying solid state as long as the price of a tube head is as much as a nice used vehicle. The little bit of warmth that you get with tubes does not justify the fact that they cost twice as much as something with transistors in it.

[Matt_22]

I use the 4 channel quad com pro compressor and it seems to work good for live application. I also run a dbx 266xl and it has alot more control than the behringer, but like I stated above the quad com pro does a great job and is worth the money. However, in our drummers studio we found the behringer equipment to be very noisy. There is always some sort of hum coming from thier preamps. Other than that I think they make a solid product. I have no ethical problem with using a piece of equipment based on copying another piece of equipment. The consumer is not the one being unethical it is the manufactorer.

[MOONDOGGY]

From what I've read in my Ebay travels, Ibanez has had quite a few 'Lawsuit guitars'. I believe they had a Ric bass copy, Les Paul copies, Gibson doubleneck SG style copies, Explorer copies (although, I don't think they were sued over these ones), and a few more. That's the name of the game. If you can't beat 'em...join 'em and sell yours for less.

[Mackovyak]

I think that every company copies it's competition at some point or another. I mean, remember when Nike was the only shoe with little air pockets in the soles? Now everyone has them. Hell, just in DAW control surfaces, everyone has copied the Mackie Baby HUI......The Behringer BCF, Tascam US-224 - FW-1884, and the Yamaha 01x all use the Mackie setup in Pro-tools.

I haven't had much experience with Behringer equipment, OtherWorld has some Behringer Compressors, but I always seem to flock to the DBX256s (I have their patch slots memorized) when I need to use them. We also have a Behringer headphone distribution center, I don't hear any noise, and never had any clients complain about it, so no problems there.

At home I have a pair of Truth 2031 active monitors which are a direct ripoff of the Mackie HR824 (which we use in the studio). They are almost identical other than the placement of the ports. Still, there is almost no difference between the two other than 339/pair vs. $849 each!

I agree that the price of certain companies is getting out of control. I believe if companies like mackie dropped their price some, companies like Behringer wouldn't be so successful. I'd be more inclined to go with the original company for a few hundred more, but $1000+ for virtually identical product???????

On the other hand, there are a lot of small manufacturers that make more original products (notice I didn't say completely original) at a reasonable price and rock...Rhode Mics anyone?

Justin

A wise man learns from his mistakes, a wiser man learns from other people mistakes.

Isn't that how it goes?

[Staceman]

I have a Behringer 60 watt bass amp. I've had it close to a month now, and so far, I've had no problems, and I like it's sound. $140 for a 60 watt is damn nice, when little 25 watt Crates and such are still over $200. One thing I've heard about Behringer amps, is that they don't take a beating as well as better names might, so you have to be a little extra careful with them when toting them around.

I also bought one of their guitar starter kits a couple months back, which includes a strat knockoff, gig bag, and a 15 watt amp. Though I know little about various guitars and brands and their quality and such, I feel that the package was put together more for the reason of introducing guitar newbies to Behringer amps; The little 15 watt amp in the kit is very well built, and has some really cool features for just a little guy, such as the modeling stuff that Behringer is also well known for. The guitar seems really crappy. But, it'll work for my kids for now to learn on, and if they take a liking to the guitar, then I'll eventually get them something better.

[Banned]

i use a Behringer 8 channel rackmount DI, an 8-channel line mixer and a 4-channel headphone amp. Never had any problems. There built solid, at least I think so, and the price is right. I had one guy tell me that Behringer equipment is a little noisy in the studio but that was his only complaint. I'm a "gear-head" and I have no problems buying their products.

[lonewolf]

I bought Tony's Feedback Destroyers. They are not copies of anything that I'm aware of. 12 filters per channel can be used in any combination of parametric EQ or feedback filters. They detect and notch filter feedback faster than anything I have used, including Sabine models and my dbx Driverack PA. I can't detect any signal degradation or excess noise from this unit. I also use a Behringer reference mic for pinking the PA. It works well and at about $50 street, its 1/10 the cost of the big boys.

Overall, I think their stuff is grossly underrated and if Mackie was that concerned that they sued them, they must be putting out some quality stuff.

[RAM Z]

I bought the Behringer 4/12 cab and I can tell ya with a Peavey XXX on top,that thing totally rocks! I have had it around 2 years now and not a single problem, yet (knock on wood)! The best part is ,it only cost me $200.00! Hell fer $400.00, you can have a full stack brand spank'n new.
We use their 58 style mics and love em! I think they sound as good as any of the bigger brand names and like I said about the cab , NO PROBLEMS what so ever! The price is the best part of any of their stuff but, the quality ,I think, is damn good too.

[JeffLeeper]

After the fire I had to replace all my amps , so I got a 210 cabinet with a switcheable horn , and a 15 cabinet , also with a switcheable horn.

They're both 600 watts , and they both sound great.....with bass , guitar , synth....and for $360.00 bucks for both.....you can have all the controversy you want. I'll take the Behringers.

[Banned]

I've had (and been using) an MX2004 mixer in various capacities for
about 2 years or more, and have yet to have any problem whatsoever.
Price versus quality? I agree that some of the other companies (of which
I also own products) ought to take a look at their competitors prices and
maybe trim them down a bit? Hum?