Behringer C50a: Anyone heard/measured/modified these powered full-range monitors?

[ghw]

Apparently this is old news, but Behringer released a powered, sealed full-range monitor, the C50a (and a "vintage," band-limited version, the C5a). Class-D amp, balanced and unbalanced servo-balanced inputs.

Has anyone heard or measured these yet? They claim 90hz-17khz, but as they don't supply a curve or a tolerance, its a pretty useless spec.

That said, if they are even remotely as well-executed as their 2-way designs (see Geddes, Linkwitz and many others re the B2031a, Zaph's measurements of the B2031P drivers and Dantheman's measurements of the B1030a and B1031a), they should be an interesting platform for modifications, sub integration, etc.

As cubic enclosures are the textbook example of a lousy enclosure shape w.r.t. diffraction and standing-waves, felt treatments, extended round-overs and bracing improvements seem like the probable low-hanging fruit.

Thoughts? Reports? Measurements? Rants about Behringer's sordid past re QC, RFI and IP appropriation?



George

[ghw]

I guess not.

[fireworks]

Originally Posted by ghw

That said, if they are even remotely as well-executed as their 2-way designs (see Geddes, Linkwitz and many others re the B2031a, Zaph's measurements of the B2031P drivers and Dantheman's measurements of the B1030a and B1031a), they should be an interesting platform for modifications, sub integration, etc.

Can you post link to those measurements / opinions ?
I am looking into getting a pair of monitors and those are on my list of candidates.
Any info will be appreciated.

[ghw]

I'll say I have a pair and I like them a lot -but I don't have a whole lot to compare it to. I think the active models are damn-near impossible to beat for the money. But all this is OT as it doesn't belong in the FR forum, so I beg everyone else' forgiveness; the Behringer 2-ways have been beaten to death and I am much more interested in measurements of their FR monitors.

Anyway, here are some highlights of the banter wrt two-ways. For everyone's benefit, I've left out the p|ssing match between Dantheman and the GEB on audio circle:

Passive system measurements posted yesterday:
Zaph|Audio

Spatial distortion

audio blog: Another Cheap Behringer Monitor

Geddes on Waveguides

From that last link:
"Check out the Behringer! I am impressed - and that's hard to do!

...

It was one of the Truth 203X - other than that I don't know.

Nice attention to low diffraction for a commercial product.

I should mention that in a recent blind listening test it beat out the Orion. The data supports that result."

[fireworks]

Thanks for the info.
You say you like them a lot. How do you use them: nearfield monitors or maybe just listening to music (HI-FI stereo system) ? Also what kind of music do you use them with ?

[ghw]

I live in a small space, but I do my best to minimize the direct-to-reverberant ratio in my room (as far from near-field as I can manage). After reading Floyd Toole's sound reproduction, I feel validated in my strong preference for the sensation of space one gets from a live room (his listeners showed a narrow optimum for a DRR of -5dB for music). Thus, I have them as close to my wall boundaries as seems sensible, a little over a meter, and toed in so they cross just in front of my face when I am the third vertex of an equilateral triangle.

I use them as monitors for working with field recordings and other two-channel (generally blumlein) recordings, as well as listening to music. I haven't made measurements in-room yet, and so I am sure I haven't completely optimized placement and my settings, but as it is I am hearing things in extremely familiar well-recorded material I had never noticed before. I.e. a dog barking twice around second 6 and 8 on Gillian Welch's "Look at Miss Ohio," and someone saying "Oh S**T!" just after (or was it just before) "Oh Comely" on Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Those are both on albums I had listened to carefully hundreds of times without noticing those (now absolutely clear) recording artifacts. They are fabulously clear and revealing, with so much headroom that I am probably listening to recordings substantially louder than I had previously.

Anyway, I don't love these monitors. Their directivity index is much higher than I think is optimal (I'd prefer more omnidirectional behavior to radiate my walls more uniformly), and the transition frequency is lower than the instrument I care most about (the human voice), while still being in a psychoacoustically critical band (IIRC the center point is ~~1K or so, but don't quote me on that). The bi-amplification setup provides phenomenal output power for a domestic space, but they are not silent. The ports have been shown to cause some diffraction artifacts, and the box is tuned for a rapid transition from anechoic-flat to 4th-order decline, which is not my cup of tea either.

But with all that said, I am extremely pleased to have a reference pair of loudspeakers with a very flat frequency response, very low non-linear distortion, gobs of headroom, and monotonically declining directivity. So even if though they're not perfect, they are a known quantity with a minimum of weirdness on or off axis to worry about when I'm tweaking a recording. Its hard for me to valuate that confidence and peace of mind. This will be much more true when I have measurements to tweak their placement (and then likely EQ) to optimize in-room bass response.

This discussion is now thoroughly off-topic and probably belongs in multi-way (or really a forum that doesn't have "DIY" in the name).

That said, I'm still interested in hearing about any investigation anyone may have done on the Behringer full-range monitors. If no-one has, I'll reiterate that they seem like they could be an inexpensive vehicle for modifications, tweaking, and other like pursuits.


George