On Sun, 2012-12-23 at 15:07 +0000, Ben Bell wrote: Or European version vs overseas version? Here it's 230 V +/-10% 50 Hz

On Sun, 2012-12-23 at 22:55 +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote: The mixing console's PSU board has the name Behringer, a revision number and IIRC also a printing with the values of the components. But the voltage of some components was borderline. The quality of the board is excellent, the components are elCheapo.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 06:47:28PM -0500, Monty Montgomery wrote: There is one ADA8000 at the CdS which has analog inputs 3 and 5 swapped on the ADAT output. Now the thing consists of two PCBs connected by a flat cable, no per-channel wiring at all, so I wonder how they do that. It must either be a routing error of one the PCBs, or a programming error in an FPGA. In both cases that means there must be lots of other ADA8000s out in the wild having the same problem. Apparently Behringer never noticed. That's quality control ! Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)

On Mon, December 24, 2012 2:21 pm, Joe Hartley wrote: Behringer components are getting better every year. The Music Group also own Midas which is top of the line gear and preferred by several people I know. Behringer products get a bad rap round here but our tests have shown they have near perfect quality components across the range of hardware they produce. At the price point they are the best value audio products on the planet. Plus they ship Audacity with their included merchandise which makes it the most distributed audio editor on the planet. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd

On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 4:10 AM, Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey(a)boosthardware.com Many live engineers I work with are more hesitant about using Midas now, not more willing to accept Behringer. Music Group bought both Midas and Klark Technik, both of which were very respected names in the live audio industry before being purchased, being associated with the Music Group may have saved these companies from not operating, but it has damaged their reputation amongst professionals, more than it has helped Behringers. Behringer may have increased the quality of their manufacturing, they have convinced some people of this. But they still try to take every shortcut they generally can, and still have a history, whether Uli recognizes it or not, that includes blatant ripoffs of other designs and questionable ethical activity, along with poor quality and reliability. Yes some of their products do sound respectable, almost all of them were at least 'inspired' by existing products that were already out. There are very few that I can use or recommend to be used because of this, and always my rule is that if you are going to use Behringer you have to have at least 2 for when it fails. And really I just don't recommend them, I only use them when I absolutely have to. Seablade

On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Patrick Shirkey < pshirkey(a)boosthardware.com&gt; wrote: At that end of the market it isn't necessarily a matter of having 'luxury to pick your tools for every job' it is a matter of, do I spend a few bucks more and get something that will last me two to three times the lifespan? Or not sound like crap? Or both, depending on the equipment. Yes some of it sounds good, but I can't depend on any of it to last long. You obviously haven't tested enough. Some of their stuff has decent S/N ratio yes, the ADA are a prime example of this. However other equipment from them is absolute crap and inject more noise into the signal path than any CONSUMER equipment I have used. This includes, and especially applies to, their low end mixers, compressors, and DIs, in particular are the units I have had hands on experience with that I have refused to touch again. Wait, are you saying that Behringer hardly does any marketing? BS. Period. I see more marketing from them than I do from A&H, Soundcraft, Yamaha, etc. They are not Bose no, but they are far from the least marketed brand out there. They depend on the 'walmart principle' if you make it cheap enough, people won't care that it sounds like crap or will break in a few months as they will just replace it. They haven't lowered the entry bar for making music, that bar was lowered before they even entered the market. People like Mackie, Samson, etc. made low cost, just not quite as low, equipment, that lasted better and generally sounded better, even if it wasn't close to what you get in the low to mid range part of the market. What they have done is taught people to settle. Look, I am obviously not a fan of Behringer, but at this point you are really sounding like someone that is. Seablade

On Mon, 24 Dec 2012, Paul Davis wrote: Yeah they did... They used to have a cute brunette on the front of every manual. :-D Now *that's* great marketing... -- + Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys + Sr. UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will + University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of + James Franck Institute + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, + Materials Research Ctr + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky

Hi, just my two cents feed into this (well deserved) Behringer rant: On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 11:26:10 -0500 Thomas Vecchione &lt;seablaede(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: When you look at Mackie and Samson products, you soon realize that while these are low-range but relatively good sounding, Behringer copied their designs (*) and made them even lower-range and crap sounding. (*) Behringer Eurorack Mixers are direct copies of the Mackies. If Mackie had a spelling error on its front, the Behringer would have it too. These half unit devices for the home studio just came out half a year after the samsons half-unit devices... While Behringer looks to be good value for its money (and is so for example with its first digital mixer), its only so much value you get for the money: After using an eurorack for two years once a week, the faders get bad, the potis are bad, the channels where leaking into one another, the noise is getting on your tits. And once you used a real EQ of a spirit, the behringers interpretation of an "english"-EQ translates to "crap"-EQ. We never even bothered to buy a case to move it around. It got bad enough without moving it... Yes, I use(d) Behringer at several churches. Yes, you get some value for your money. Yes, many poor non-profit organizations settle for their products, altough they would be better of with the value-for-money for other equipment. No, I don't want to use any of the Behringer products anymore. Finding that one or two exceptions in their product-line is just not worth dealing with all their crap. Better save your money some time and then buy some real equipment. If you like Behringer, good luck. You will need it. Have a nice festive season, Arnold

On Tue, 25 Dec 2012 06:55:34 -0500 Thomas Vecchione &lt;seablaede(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I was actually talking about the ddx3216. Which I found to be partly useful once you managed around the various issues. But I lost track with their equipment since I decided not to burden me with their stuff anymore. Have fun, Arnold

On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 6:22 AM, Patrick Shirkey &lt;pshirkey(a)boosthardware.com Again I repeat. You haven't tested enough then. All of the equipment I mentioned have been sold in the last 10 years, and extends far beyond just their mixers. Yes some of their equipment is good, much more in my experience is bad. Yes they are better lately, but it does not, in my opinion, excuse past missteps of that magnitude. Of course the line you were replying to had nothing to do with internal board layout and was in response to your comment about marketing. And no, producets from other manufacturers don't all look the same internally in my experience. For example there is a huge difference between a Mackie console at 24 channels and A&H, easily replaceable channel strips for one thing. Similar for a Soundcraft, etc. Even those other manufacturers that go for single board construction looks different in my experience. I think it is just you are either exceedingly lucky, or very limited selection of their hardware honestly. My experience has been mirrored by many professional audio engineers with a large selection of their products. Again not all their products are horrible, some have very good sound for instance, but in all cases if I buy one I am buying two for when it breaks, and also in all cases I would much rather spend a little more to get something I don't have to worry about that on. I know of some of the larger professional audio distributors in the US that used to carry Behringer, and stopped (In at least the case of one which is one of the largest in the past 5 years) due to the amount of support requests and returns they had on them. Mind you most of the places I go through also end up providing at least limited support on whatever they sell as well because they develop relationships with the people they deal with, and want to make sure they sell what is going to fit their needs. In the case of that distributor it looks like they are starting to try them again, this is a very recent development for them, within the past year or so. I would be curious to have a conversation with one of the reps I deal with there (Depending on whether I am buying for myself, or one of the several companies I buy for determines which rep I deal with) to see what the reasoning is there. Seablade

On 12/23/2012 04:02 PM, John Murphy wrote: Well, you get what you pay for. You can pretty much forget the efficiency factor of cheap chinese PSU modules. And yes, this crap is also built in high priced devices where you don't expect them. It depends on the efficiency of the analogue layout and the reference voltage. I know mic preamp designs with 0.5W/channel and with 4W/channel. A good thermal design is very important because it allows high channels counts in stage boxes without fans. Flo -- Machines can do the work, so people have time to think. public key B3B9226C x-hkp://wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net