BEHRINGER FAKE??? NOOOOOOO?!?!?!?...

[MR NINE]

Hey guys!

Check this article and have your conclusions!



http://www.record-producer.com/learn.cfm?a=2838

 

[Radd]

Hey guys!

Check this article and have your conclusions!



http://www.record-producer.com/learn.cfm?a=2838

Sneaky bastards!

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

Yeah, I have the Behringer Tube Composer compressor, and it's instantly obvious that the "tube glow" is a lightbulb. Behringer isn't the only brand who does this; a number of Korg grooveboxes have tubes visable through a little window that's obviously backlit by LEDs.
The tube in the Behringer units, however, is definitely part of the circuit, it just happens to be of a "starved plate" design, i.e; an extremely low voltage is run through it. The sort of voltage running through a tube guitar amp is anywhere from 100-300+ volts, whereas a starved plate design usually runs less than 50V through its tube. Most low-end tube preamps feature "starved plate" designs, and they generally suck; the tube acts as nothing more than a lowpass filter in some silly attempt at creating "warm" tones. The VTB-1 is an exception, because it's very cleverly designed and sounds very good indeed, but for under $800 you're probably looking at starved plate stuff. In fact, the only "true tube" mic pre I can think of in the low end arena is Groove Tubes' "The Brick", which is, BTW, awesome.
I think the moral here is to not be fooled into thinking that Tube = Warmth; if you're sticking to budget stuff, you'll be much happier with a well-designed solid state pre than with a cheap tube pre.

 

[Frank'nfurter]

What's about the SPL Charisma? Also a starved plate design?

 

[Lopes]

Oh man, my world no longer makes sense.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

I wonder if Ashlee simpson uses them.

 

[egan.]

LMFAO....you get what you pay for

 

[Kazrog]

The main reason I wouldn't by Behringer is because their stuff sounds horrible, however, there is a MUCH worse thing that Behringer did than put these LEDs in...

Behringer stole their mixer design from Mackie, and they even copied the Mackie manual, down to the typos. A lawsuit was filed by Mackie and settled out of court.

This being said, do a head-to-head comparison of Mackie vs. Behringer and you will find that the Mackie sounds 10 times better, presumably because of the higher quality components Mackie uses.

 

[kaomao]

Think about their new pedal effects line.
Roland is really possed off because behringer just copied the schematis of the famous boss pedals line.
This is interesting http://www.record-producer.com/learn.cfm?a=2840
I'm with this guy I think behringer makes good shit at a low price, ok it's not the best gear in the market but if you're on a budget, as andy said here, they're ok.
The fake tube glow is hilarous but you know if that shit works who cares if there's a tube working or not.
If you want pro gear don't buy behringer, it's really easy.

Maurizio

p.s. their DI is not that bad, I like it very much and is cheap: 45€ here

 

[kaomao]

and this is even better
http://www.record-producer.com/learn.cfm?a=1687

pay attention to the outputs ahahhaa

Maurizio

 

[Mulder]

and this is even better
http://www.record-producer.com/learn.cfm?a=1687

pay attention to the outputs ahahhaa

Maurizio

Well, I just hooked one up to my RME HDSP9652, feeding the ADA8000 with the RME's wordclock.

Not bad at all. The ADA8000 is simply the internal ADDA of the Alesis Adat HD24 HDrecorder (same convertors) with some transistors in front of it to give it a little gainstage to hook up a mic. The PSU is a bit on the lean side, but that's to be expected.

But the wordclockinput on the back of the ADA8000 makes a world of difference, the PLLclock in the RME is very good, hence the sound of the ADA8000 is excellent.

Amazing deal. I'm even gonna use it to tri-amp my monitors with linear-phase digital filtering.

Aahhh... Computers.. =)

Oh yeah, if you wanna buy this as a standalone micpre you're really missing something. This is an Adat optical interface, and a pretty good one for it's money.

If you need a micpre don't buy an adatinterface. Should not be too difficult to grasp I guess.

 

[kaomao]

Oh yeah, if you wanna buy this as a standalone micpre you're really missing something. This is an Adat optical interface, and a pretty good one for it's money.

If you need a micpre don't buy an adatinterface. Should not be too difficult to grasp I guess.

I read right now the manual, the analog outputs are just the converted output of the adat in.
This cleared my mind. I think the person that written that article maybe didnt't understand what this unit is for.

Maurizio

 

[Frank'nfurter]

That's the point!

 

[DIOBOLIC5150]

That is just too damn funny. I'm gonna go put lights behind my burnt out tubes, so that it doesn't bother me as much.

 

[LynchpiN]

Hahaha I got so scared that I opened all my tube cheapies to check out if I'm being tricked or not.

Fortunately, there were no leds - and no Behringer.

Funny, really. I laughed my ass out while reading the article.

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

What's about the SPL Charisma? Also a starved plate design?

Since that unit isn't a preamp, and doesn't have the sort of gain stage you'd need for to amplify a mic or instrument signal, I don't think the plate voltage matters. I'm pretty sure it's line-in to line-out, with some degree of tube sat in between, and the "starved plate" concept doesn't apply, since the tubes aren't really "starved" at all.
Even so, I should make the point that not ALL starved-plate preamp designs suck (to recall the VTB as an example), but generally speaking a starved-plate tube design is a bit half-assed, and primarily used for marketing purposes, like our German friends over at Behringer.
I'll also take a moment to give credit to Behringer for two units of theirs that I like: their cable tester is very handy, and they have a rackmount guitar tuner on the way- exactly the type of device that I feel is usually overpriced and could benefit from a cheap alternative. As long as it has true bypass, of course. Basically, anything by Behringer that I don't actually put any audio through is pretty good.
I also have to disagree about the quality of their DI boxes, because I own the Ultra-DI . I didn't think it sounded bad until I bought a decent DI (the brick) a few weeks ago, which makes the Behringer sound like a rotary telephone receiver. Yak.