Behringer news

Dave W · April 30, 2015, 02:18:15 PM

Uli Behringer's Music Group buys TC Group

This means that Tannoy, TC Helicon and TC Electronic will now be stablemates of Behringer.

No reason to panic yet, it doesn't necessarily mean their quality will go downhill.

Pilgrim · April 30, 2015, 03:14:27 PM

I'm sure the folks who dislike Behringer will find this to be reason to predict the downfall of civilization as we know it. Me, I can happily wait and see.

Granny Gremlin · April 30, 2015, 03:15:49 PM

Yeah, neither Midas nor Klark Technik were affected in any way.

What seems to happen is that what is good about the purchased brand is folded in to the Behringer brand (e.g. a few years after buying Midas, Behringer released the X32 live mixer which recently won some award so it can't be as bad as the one I used to have, but Midas users complain new production Venice consoles aren't so great) and the source brand is put under budget/business constraints that erode it's quality and good name. I do hear that Midas has rebounded a bit in that regard (don't know personally) not sure if Klark Technik did, but they're not making cool shit like they used too. Kinda like when Orban was bought out (by Harmon? can't recall), they seem to have been forced to focus on live sound gear (vs Orban's forced refocus on broadcast gear) and stop making stuff that had much chance of being considered for studio use.

Psycho Bass Guy · May 10, 2015, 07:37:36 AM

QFT

Quote from: Granny Gremlin on April 30, 2015, 03:15:49 PM
Yeah, neither Midas nor Klark Technik were affected in any way.

What seems to happen is that what is good about the purchased brand is folded in to the Behringer brand (e.g. a few years after buying Midas, Behringer released the X32 live mixer which recently won some award so it can't be as bad as the one I used to have, but Midas users complain new production Venice consoles aren't so great) and the source brand is put under budget/business constraints that erode it's quality and good name. I do hear that Midas has rebounded a bit in that regard (don't know personally) not sure if Klark Technik did, but they're not making cool shit like they used too. Kinda like when Orban was bought out (by Harmon? can't recall), they seem to have been forced to focus on live sound gear (vs Orban's forced refocus on broadcast gear) and stop making stuff that had much chance of being considered for studio use.

Truth: Midas is NOT what it used to be! Be prepared for Behringer quality TC bass amps.

Unrelated, but I was supposed to have dibs on my old station's Orban multiband audio limiter and a very funky cheap Korg rackmount spring reverb, no kidding, when the HD upgrade removed everything analog from the master broadcast chain, but they conveniently "forgot" and it disappeared.

Pilgrim · May 10, 2015, 02:17:28 PM

I have some ambivalence around this. I've owned a few pieces of Behringer gear including one of their 4500 series amps, and every item has been a very good performer and very dependable. The knock on Behringer (other than an ethical one) seems to be the reliability of their gear. In my limited experience, it wasn't as bad as it's made out to be.

Psycho Bass Guy · May 10, 2015, 06:52:06 PM

Midas was THE pinnacle in live consoles before Behringer raped them. I realize that almost all of their classic analog boards were already a thing of the past anyway, but to put things in perspective, Midas Heritage consoles that were 20 years old made tour riders above almost all the latest digital crap, even though they weighed 4 times as much. Weight is the biggest no-no on tour because of fuel costs and it was STILL only the advent of Pro Tools-sponsored tours that put digital in the driver's seat for the big boys. Like almost everything else in electronics, something great is being chucked for something cheap.

Granny Gremlin · May 10, 2015, 09:41:25 PM

Quote from: Pilgrim on May 10, 2015, 02:17:28 PM
I have some ambivalence around this. I've owned a few pieces of Behringer gear including one of their 4500 series amps, and every item has been a very good performer and very dependable. The knock on Behringer (other than an ethical one) seems to be the reliability of their gear. In my limited experience, it wasn't as bad as it's made out to be.

Not just reliability, but also boring sound (sometimes outright bad, as in noise or other problems). It is true in a general sense, but varies with the specific model.

Even though the X32 is basically a cheaper Midas M32 and has won awards (and is digital vs analog) I will never touch a Behringer mixer again (granted my experience was with their first gen - sounded dull, not very solid, and the crosstalk was insane if you tried to use more than a few channels). Same for signal processing gear (I owned a T1953 preamp which sucked but wasn't too flimsy from what I recall, but the V-Verb is still fondly remembered and even well regarded in some circles as a nice digital verb unit). Same for instrument devices (amps/fx ) - Behringer doesn't do mojo; best case they do OK clean. What I will continue to own and use is their utility stuff - there was a period when their passive DIs weren't half bad, and I still own a headphone distro amp (I try not to look at it funny, because it seems kinda skitish, but it works, sounds OK, was cheap and isn't in a critical signal path - had it for just less than a decade and the only issue is that recently 1 of 4 channels, each with 3 headphone outs, went wonky... possibly just one of the outputs on that channel; haven't gone through it yet/low priority/had a spare channel I could use so no biggie).