Behringer buys Midas

Unicorn said:
tbh I don't think that Behringer is as bad as most of you guys say.
Everything I bought from Behringer still runs without mistakes. Maybe the equipment is from lower quality, but that's why it's so cheap.

Especially in the last weeks I think this forum became very strict in it's opinion about what's good and bad. Seems like the greytones dissappear, cause everything is either black or white...
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Yeah, exactly. They put out some stuff that is just crap, substandard guitar pedals, tuners, noisy preamps, horrible DAW controllers... But there are at least as much products out there which are worth even twice their money. Like some mixing desks, the Bugera amps, the ADA8000, the B2031As etc.
 
The problem with Behringer is that they are a disease that has spread far beyond themselves. Behringer has been so successful selling sweatshop made gear to a largely clueless marketplace, that they have pushed other once-great companies over the edge (most notably Mackie, but now about 80% of the music equipment industry) into sweatshop outsourcing MOST of their products, just to be able to compete on a price scale.

It's a sad situation, and it affects every industry, not just music equipment. However, it's obvious if you look at recent history that Behringer is the company that pushed the others over to the dark side in this specific industry.

Sure, Behringer may make a few products in the "surprisingly decent for the price" category - but who cares? Save your money for something that will sound better and last longer.
 
Kazrog said:
The problem with Behringer is that they are a disease that has spread far beyond themselves. Behringer has been so successful selling sweatshop made gear to a largely clueless marketplace, that they have pushed other once-great companies over the edge (most notably Mackie, but now about 80% of the music equipment industry) into sweatshop outsourcing MOST of their products, just to be able to compete on a price scale.
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But Behringer has also made _a lot_ of products more easily accessible that were previously unavailable for a big market, especially for large group of beginners. In the end the more expensive gear are a really small business compared to the near consumer priced gear, because they move in a helluva larger quantities.

Comparing that you would need a mixing desk + monitoring to hear themselves on the rehearsal room, so would you rather buy a racksized Midas Venice ($3500) + d&b MAX monitors ($2000 each), or a racksized mixer and monitors with equivalent features for a fraction of the price for practice use, where the monitoring quality is not as crucial as live or in studio?
 
Except that what you are describing is the exact market that mackie successfully filled for 20 years w/o having to steal schematics. There is affordable and there is too good to be true.
 
Unicorn said:
tbh I don't think that Behringer is as bad as most of you guys say.
Everything I bought from Behringer still runs without mistakes. Maybe the equipment is from lower quality, but that's why it's so cheap.

Especially in the last weeks I think this forum became very strict in it's opinion about what's good and bad. Seems like the greytones dissappear, cause everything is either black or white...
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i know it's been said before, but the issue isn't that they make cheap gear - it's that they consistently and blatantly rip off the designs of other companies, manufacture them at a lower standard, and then sell the shit out of them

imagine you're a company like midas, who probably spent a good deal of time and money designing a quality board like the venice...and who ONLY produce that one type of product. then behringer come along and completely rip-off your design, to the point that the only R&D costs that they have is figuring out which shitty components to use in place of the ones that you use, and they sell the fuck out of it off your coattails.

the way they play the game is just totally fucked up, and has set the stage for numerous hard-working, passionate, and pioneering companies to fail, while they continue to peddle their substandard bullshit - and, as a result, you'll never see me spend a fucking DIME on a single product of theirs.
 
colonel kurtz said:
i know it's been said before, but the issue isn't that they make cheap gear - it's that they consistently and blatantly rip off the designs of other companies, manufacture them at a lower standard, and then sell the shit out of them
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I get your point.
But Behringer got sued for doing this. I think it was by Mackie.
And in the court he demonstrated how to build a channel strip himself. He showed its just normal circuits.
On the other hand there are so many Japanese car builders that rip off european cars. Work in companys to steal their stuff. Don't you buy a japanese car because of this?
I think Mr. Behringer didn't sneak into companys atleast ;) He must have a lot of knowledge.
I don't want to be a Behringer defender here at all, but I also don't want to accept that Behringer = shit attitude.
 
behringer have been sued multiple times by multiple companies for patent infringement

and car companies may borrow general concepts from each other, but if one company was to outright steal a patented engine design from another company, it would be a big fucking deal!!
 
ahjteam said:
Nope, thats a carbon copy of Midas Venice.

BEHRINGER_MIDAS.jpg
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Correct - Pretty insane how identical the two are.
And Im sure they sound identical too, right?? :p

So now effectively I have a bunch of huge Behringer consoles at work... Awesome..
 
And to add to my post....

Just before reading this post, I walked across one of the rooms at my place and stubbed the shit out of my big toe on a Behringer HA8000 headphone amp.. For fucks sake.. I hate Behringer!!

Haha..
 
Does anyone know if Behringer have ever actually been successfully sued?

The thing is, all preamps are essentially the same electronically. So are all mixing desks, guitar amps, compressors (obviously depending on their type), etc. The main differences are the actual components they're made from - that's the major place where companies like Behringer save money. The important, unique differences are the bits you get patents for, and those bits Behringer don't copy.

The fact that they deliberately make things look like other products is irrelevant - you can't patent the look of something. That's what copyright is for, and audio companies don't seem big on copyrighting their designs; hence Behringer getting away with it so much of the time.

Steve
 
They've lost at least on case (to Aphex), but the compensation they had to pay was relatively mild (about 300 000 Euros) compared to the 300 something million dollars Mackie sued them over. But they (Mackie) lost that case because apparently, circuit board layouts aren't protected by US copyright.

What Behringer does might be morally questionable, but it's usually on a solid legal footing. They were just the first to take globalization and outsourcing to a whole new level in the audio world.

But what they did was no novum. Just take some Asian guitar companies for example. Ibanez, Tokai etc. all got a foot in the market by blatantly ripping off designs before they offered their own creations. Hell, basically all of Japan's vast economic growth post WWII is based on copying western products.

Is what Behringer is doing the "gentlemen's way"? Hell no, but this is a tough business and I guarantee you that the guys at Mackie or Peavey only wish they would have been such innovators at this field (not product innovators, but innovators in globalisation and outsourcing). If you really think there's even one company in this business that takes moral before money, then your view is pretty diluted.

No, I don't promote conducting business in such a manner. But I rather have a company like Behringer who expose themselves to copyright and patent issues, than your Chinese rip-off who doesn't even give a shit about anything, including brand names etc.

And these "sweatshop" accusations... well they fit oh soo well in the picture, but it's bullshit. As it's well documented, Behringer city is a modern industry complex, quite second to none to anything you'll find in China.

You really think the Peavey Valvekings and Windsors come from a more "worker-friendly" environment? I really don't think so.

If it wasn't Behringer, it could have been any other company who did the first step in this territory.
 
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