Behringer, Rant

[bcollins]

I don't know whether to be pi#$ed or depressed.
It all started when I ordered 2 new Behringer A500 amps this summer. I didn't get around to instaling them until the mad rush before Rally Sunday (first week of Sept.) When I did, one of the amps had a dead right channel, out of the box.
I called American Musical Supply and much to my surprise they sent me a new one overnight under warranty.
But guess what... the right channel went dead within seconds of playing the first note thru the new one they sent as a replacement.

The tech guy on the phone said they have had a rash of DOA Behringer products and stated that their quality control left a lot to be desired lately.

I will say however, that the support I received from American Musical was outstanding and their willingness to cross ship new replacements at their expense impressed me.

Later... tonight I went to the church to re- mount the manual for the chimes to the console for All Saints Sunday. Since I was there, I decided to play some midi files for fun.
But alas, half the pedal stops and most of the upperwerk was not sounding. A little investigating and what do I find?

The Behringer ADA8000 digital to analogue converter is dead. Two months old!

Now I'm down to 8 channels and I had to quickly reroute the whole organ putting an enormous burden on the only Pedal amp (now) and the Main speaker array.

[Grant_Youngman]

The tech guy on the phone said they have had a rash of DOA Behringer products and stated that their quality control left a lot to be desired lately.

I had two Berhinger powered monitors with problems when I received them earlier this year. Two monitors from different pairs from different retail establishments.

Now, I have to say that they were taken care of under warranty, quickly. But I did have to pay the local (Dallas, TX) warranty repair center -- I think -- $50 to get 1 week versus 6 week turnaround. And also had to deal with the typical "no problem found" response, with several phone calls to get them to look one more time. At least I was allowed to speak directly with the tech working on them. Same problem in both cases -- bad solder joints around the amplifier bricks.

They've been flawless since. But never should have gotten past QC in the first place.

[cdatzko]

Well, here in Germany they say that Behringer is good for the two years that their warrenty lasts. After that you're mostly out of luck. We had a mixing console where two channels didn't work anymore. Repair price: about 80% of the original price.

We switched labels.

Christian.

The tech guy on the phone said they have had a rash of DOA Behringer products and stated that their quality control left a lot to be desired lately.

I had two Berhinger powered monitors with problems when I received them earlier this year. Two monitors from different pairs from different retail establishments.

Now, I have to say that they were taken care of under warranty, quickly. But I did have to pay the local (Dallas, TX) warranty repir center -- I think -- $50 to get 1 week versus 6 week turnaround. And also had to deal with the typical "no problem found" response, with several phone calls to get them to look one more time. At least I was allowed to speak directly with the tech working on them. Same problem in both cases -- bad solder joints around the amplifier bricks.

They've been flawless since. But never should have gotten past QC in the first place.

[dwood]

Hey Bob,

I don't know what your plans for replacement are but you might want to check out the CM2008 or the CM2204 from Crest Audio.

They are 8 and 4 channel amps which are industrial quality and fairly inexpensive on a channel basis.

They are up to 220 Watts per channel. I have had a CM2208 installed in my audio rig at church for a year now with no problems. We run all our monitors and distributed audio through it.

We are using them in our commercial installations here and Marshall & Ogletree also use them.

I found new 8 channel CM2208s for $1435US online.

Darryl

[JPSmith]

I have often wondered how Behringer could sell their gear for so much less than competitive pro audio brands. Now I guess I know.

You get what you pay for it seems.

[solotibia]

I have owned a pair of Behringer B2031A (the "Truth") for 4 years now. Not a hicucp from them. Since then, my family of Truths for my VTPO has grown to 10 (out of 28 channels). No DOAs, no problems.

I also own the T1953 mike mixer. Not a problem even though I have dropped the T1953! And I have 7 other Behringer mixers. Only one intermittent problem with one which cost me $99.

At the prices, I think that these are incredible products, just the same, I take the view that at these prices, they can be disposable after a couple of years. That they have proved, for me, to be much better than that is just incredible.

Chinese manufacture works if the design element (based elsewhere) and the manufacturing element are connected via a rigorous certified quality control system. Behringer make point of this, and in my case it has been working. I would have observe that if they had been failing across the board, then the company would have gone out of business. They haven't. Indeed, they continue to flourish and take on developing ever more technically complex products.

It has been interesting for me to observe the reaction of other players to the Behringer onslaught. So, the likes of Crown, Mackie, and MOTU have all run out to do the same design/manufacturing model. And why not? It makes sense! Good God, I heard last night (but haven't yet checked) that even Harmon International is even having some its Mark Levinson high end gear produced in this manner.

Of course it is one thing to say that you use a certified quality system and alternatively, just move your manufacturing to China without one. My experiences with MOTU's 24 I/O proved that! Two disasters, and the importer used "Chinese manufacture" as the excuse! What crap! It is MOTU's management practices which are to blame.

Also take the audio brand NAD. Brilliant designs. Extraordinary audio quality for the money. But enormous batch differences within each model. Why? They put their production out to bid. So, a different Chinese or Taiwanese manufacturer could have produced different batches with vastly differing quality levels.

A success story with Chinese manufacturing is Definitive Technology.

So, there is Chinese manufacture, and Chinese manufacture. It is not all Apples to Apples.

Ian McLean