Behringer ACX900 series

[jan.didden]

Hi,

A friend of mine is looking for a musical instrument amp/speaker combo, and I recommended something like the Behringer ACX900. Two channels at 45W each, guitar and mic input, CD player/line input, + a host of effects and eqalizers. About 280 euros here.

However, the dealer I talked to today said he was discontinuing the ACX900 and others because of poor build quality and frequent failing. Now, this may be because he has more margin on other brands. But I was wondering if any of you have any experienc with these equipments.

TIA,

Jan Didden

 

[Jarno]

Hello Jan,

I don't think I can be of much help, but I find the statement that these break easily not very believable. Even though Behringer makes equipment on the low to middle end of the market they are not very likely to produce stuff that breaks down all the time.
_Maybe_ they cut a few corners by using a lighter transformer or using lower grade connectors and pots, and skimping on the heatsinking. But I think you can remedy all these things relatively easy.

But IC's are IC's, right?


Now if you abuse your equipment, that's another story.

Best regards,

Jarno.

 

[jan.didden]

Well, that dealer told me that sometimes of the 10 units he orders, 2 or 3 are broken right out of the box. Hard to believe.
I am using 2 Behringer DCX2496's which had some issues due to problems with a digital CS8240 chip which happens to have problems acknowledged by Cirrus, but that's hardly Behringer's fault.

Bedankt!

Jan Didden

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I use a LOT of behringer stuff, I can't recommend it highly enough, it's all performed flawlessly and with perfect reliablity.

I would suggest shops are tending to drop it because they don't like the low margins on Behringer, which you can get for very good prices on-line.

 

[jan.didden]

Hi Nigel,

Interesting. Yesterday evening I chatted with a couple of guys from a sound crew setting up for a concert in my town. They said that in their experience, Behringer performs as good as the next brand, but is less reliable mechanically. Said one of them: if I drop a Behringer box and a ***** box, chances are that the ***** brand continues to work but that the Behringer is broken....

So, it seems B has at least less favourable image. Then again, you can buy 2 or three B's for the price of another established brand.

Jan Didden

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hi Nigel,

Interesting. Yesterday evening I chatted with a couple of guys from a sound crew setting up for a concert in my town. They said that in their experience, Behringer performs as good as the next brand, but is less reliable mechanically. Said one of them: if I drop a Behringer box and a ***** box, chances are that the ***** brand continues to work but that the Behringer is broken....

I would agree with that, even though I've never seen a broken Behringer - but the lower cost means it's not as substantially built - so I would expect it to withstand less abuse.

 

[unclejed613]

i've fixed a few Behringers. mostly Class D modules with a shorted FET and snubber diode, and one switching supply with dried out electrolytic caps. nothing spectacularly unreliable about them. generally, their modular design makes them simple to troubleshoot and disassemble. had one i wanted a complete amp module for, but only one local supplier who was somewhat backlogged on Behringer parts, and i ended up repairing the module myself.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

i've fixed a few Behringers. mostly Class D modules with a shorted FET and snubber diode, and one switching supply with dried out electrolytic caps. nothing spectacularly unreliable about them. generally, their modular design makes them simple to troubleshoot and disassemble. had one i wanted a complete amp module for, but only one local supplier who was somewhat backlogged on Behringer parts, and i ended up repairing the module myself.

A friend of mine bought a cheap faulty Behringer mixer of Ebay - all that was wrong was a wire broken off in the multiway plug from the separate PSU

The only reason I saw it at all, was he wanted it modifying to give single recording outputs from 8 of the channels (it was a 24 channel mixer). Inside it was incredibly well made, with very thick PCB's - conisting of three separate 8 channel sections plugged together. A little investigation, and a bit of scoping, found an opamp buffer on the outputs of the sliders, and so we tapped off from there with some resistors. There was enough space on the back of that section to fit 8 output sockets, so I left that to him.

 

[unclejed613]

i would sy that behringers are made fo light-to-medium road use. they are pretty sturdily constructed, but for heavy road use, there is stuff out there built like a tank (and almost as heavy), and quite a bit more expensive. if i were forced to use behringer equipment for a hard road trip, i would build it into a steel framed, shock mounted road box, and add a steel patch panel, as i don't like pc board mounted connectors to have large heavy cables attached to them, especially ones that might get tripped over, have things dropped on them, etc...
it's like the HDMI connectors on consumer audio equipment. the connector is directly soldered to the board, and when somebody connects a "monster cable" HDMI cable to it, the large stiff cable and large connector shell makes for a nice long lever, with force already applied by gravity, any downward force at all, like moving the device it's connected to, rips the pins and the traces they're soldered to right off the surface of the board. the same things must be considered in making sound equipment roadworthy.