I've got a Berhinger mixer that I don't use much because it sounds like poo. No complaints about the features, price, or reliability.

Just recently purchased a pair of monitors from Behringer, love 'em, but the auto-power on one of them didn't work out of the box. I contacted them, and they sent me a very long explaination of what I would have to do to get it repaired under warranty. They expect me, the customer who had nothing to do with installing a faulty part, to do all the leg work in locating a Behringer retailer that will take the defective speaker, give me a new one, and ship the old one back to Germany. I bought the speakers from B&H in New York, I live in Tennessee. You would think that Behringer would have sent me the name and address of a local retailer that would take care of the problem. I don't think that anyone that I didn't buy thses speakers from is going to be very anxious to help me. Like the product, but NOT the service.

ship the old one back to Germany

How many Behringer products have actually been to Germany?

ORIGINAL: krizrox
...What I detest is the blatant copycat thing. Aren't there laws against that sort of stuff? Or does Behringer pay some sort of license fee to Mackie for copying their designs?...

Larry, I know you've been around the block enough to know that Mackie did the exact same thing to Neve, right?

What made Mackie stand out from all the bandwidth-limited hiss machines that we knew as "affordable mixers" back in the day was that they copied Neve circuit designs but with cheaper components and mass-production cost savings.

I have no love for Behringer, and they obviously slavishly copy anything Mackie does, but it always kind of baffles me when that is singled out as an ethical fault. If Mackie was an innovative company, it was in cost efficiency, certainly not in product design. Mackie was the trailblazer in the field of ripping off high-end circuits and finding ways to manufacture them cheaper. *If* there was anything cool about Mackie bringing pro features and design to the little guy, then suing Behringer was the most uncool thing they ever did, because Behringer basically just picked up the baton from Mackie and ran with it.

Why is there any sympathy towards Mackie, of all companies, in this respect? I could see someone faulting Behringer for, say, ripping off some guy selling stuff so esoteric that even the wife and kids don't know what Dad's doing in the garage, or for ripping off say Earthworks or some such, but why should anyone feel bad for Mackie? It doesn't make any sense.

If there's anybody in the audio world who doesn't already know about it, look up Fletcher's "S**t on a Stick" escapades at the 1996 AES convention that nearly got Mercenary Audio kicked out. The professional audio world basically viewed Mackie in exactly the same light that hobbyist audio snobs now view Behringer, because Mackie was doing the same to them that Behringer is now doing to Mackie.

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: yep

ORIGINAL: krizrox
...What I detest is the blatant copycat thing. Aren't there laws against that sort of stuff? Or does Behringer pay some sort of license fee to Mackie for copying their designs?...

Larry, I know you've been around the block enough to know that Mackie did the exact same thing to Neve, right?

What made Mackie stand out from all the bandwidth-limited hiss machines that we knew as "affordable mixers" back in the day was that they copied Neve circuit designs but with cheaper components and mass-production cost savings.

I have no love for Behringer, and they obviously slavishly copy anything Mackie does, but it always kind of baffles me when that is singled out as an ethical fault. If Mackie was an innovative company, it was in cost efficiency, certainly not in product design. Mackie was the trailblazer in the field of ripping off high-end circuits and finding ways to manufacture them cheaper. *If* there was anything cool about Mackie bringing pro features and design to the little guy, then suing Behringer was the most uncool thing they ever did, because Behringer basically just picked up the baton from Mackie and ran with it.

Why is there any sympathy towards Mackie, of all companies, in this respect? I could see someone faulting Behringer for, say, ripping off some guy selling stuff so esoteric that even the wife and kids don't know what Dad's doing in the garage, or for ripping off say Earthworks or some such, but why should anyone feel bad for Mackie? It doesn't make any sense.

If there's anybody in the audio world who doesn't already know about it, look up Fletcher's "S**t on a Stick" escapades at the 1996 AES convention that nearly got Mercenary Audio kicked out. The professional audio world basically viewed Mackie in exactly the same light that hobbyist audio snobs now view Behringer, because Mackie was doing the same to them that Behringer is now doing to Mackie.

Cheers.

I'm not doubting or questioning that Mackie might have used pre-existing circuit designs as a template or blueprint for their own products. I suppose everyone who produces professional microphone preamps has borrowed heavily from Neve and SSL and Trident and other sources at one point or another. I've used a lot of different type of mic pres in my life - or at least had the opportunity to hear some of them in action. I never made any association that Mackie sounded like Neve though. Not even in their higher end products. I always thought Mackie products had a sound quality all their own. So if they did copy anything, at least they came out the other end with something that was unique to them. That I admire. Do Mackie mixers/mic pre's have the same depth and quality of a $3000 Neve or SSL mic channel? Of course not.

I still maintain that Mackie products were like a breath of fresh air when they hit the market. All I know is my ability to produce better sounding recordings improved drastically when I got my first Mackie mixer. I didn't have to worry about knobs falling off or excessive hiss ruining my demos. I could carry these things to gigs and know that at least my mixer would work when I plugged it in. I've never worked in the big leagues but I can imagine that the big boys were all shaking in their pants when Mackie and Alesis and Tascam (et al.) started making products that allowed the weekend warriors to produce recordings on par with the million dollar studios.

The funny thing is, Behringer might have copied the look and feel of Mackie mixers, right down to the layout and position of the knobs and buttons, but they didn't capture the sound. Behringer mixers don't sound as good as Mackie's - even though they often look identical. Behringer mixers have no punch. Oh you can mix music on them but it's like the mixer is sucking all the ummph out of the signal.

Sadly, after having said all this, I have to admit that the last few Mackie mixers I've owned have all suffered latent manufacturing defects and have had to be repaired after a short period of time. So Mackie is not without sin either. But I would be more inclined to have a Mackie product repaired than a Behringer product. That stuff is too cheap to warrant the high cost of repair.

http://ricobelled.com/
This CD was recorded and produced by Rico Belled ( www.ricobelled.com ) using almost all behringer pre's. The record has life, energy, and it sounds great.

I think behringer cuts the mustard quite well on this one.

I realize the link didnt point to the record. Just go to that site above and click "order cd's" and then listen to Ronnie Gutierrez cd. It is the one that was done with Behringer pre's.

Sorry, I'm unconvinced about Behringer and $40 mic's. We'll have to amicably agree to disagree.

If I stop and think about it, the market is full of clones of clones (just like Yep argued). You can't single out a particular company because everyone eventually rips someone off some time to get something to market.

If a company like Mackie invents something, they are free to seek patent protection for it. During the term of the patent, they have the legal ability to protect themselves from copy-cats.

If a product isn't patented, or if it was but a long time ago so the patent is expired, anyone is free to try to duplicate it. As you point out in your story about the Ibanez, this can be a great thing for consumers when Company B is able to make Company A's product better, at a lower price. Think generic drugs and Japanese cars.

Without that spur, Company A would be free to let quality sink and prices rise. Think American cars especially in the days before they realized the need to take Japan seriously.

Virtually every piece of gear we own is probably, ultimately, a copy from someone else. A lot of companies make condenser mikes; some one company invented them. Ditto for monitors, balanced cables, GUI's, mice, cymbals . . .

I'm still frustrated that audio gear (of the technical sort, not the hand-crafted sort) doesn't seem to be taking the path of photography or computer gear, where products in general get better and better while also getting less and less expensive. Our stuff seems to be priced more like fashion!

Well said Corey. Bottom of the barrel isnt necessarily and often not a bad thing these days.

Mentioning Behringer equipment that we own that are of value = $ / what u get, I currently have:

ECM8000 Mic: Omni and rail-flat response, fairly low noise. Perfect for room response measurements, and works as a nice little point-source omni condenser, too.

DSP1100P (now you'd get the DSP1124P). Great for my live setup. Works as both an FBX and a parametric EQ.

CX2300 and DCX2496: Yes, they are in the monitoring path. Do I care? No, because for the utilitarian purpose they serve (subwoofer crossover and speaker management) they perform very nicely.

UCA202: Your basic soundblaster replacement (though more limited in sample rate... but at this price, who's counting?). Line-in, Line out, and headphones. I tested mine and it's also rail-flat from 20-20k, sampling at 44.1k. I haven't tested it for low-latency in SONAR yet (haven't had the need), but I've been curious.