Linkwitz Orions beaten by Behringer.... what!!?

....All three of the speakers that I measured cost under $300 per pair, and the Jamos are under $100 a pair. It's sorta depressing to see people listening to music on their iPhones when quality loudspeakers like this are just dirt cheap.

And I don't have anything against MP3, when I say "listening to music on their iPhone" I literally mean that there are millions of people who listen to music on their iPhones, with no speaker or headphones.

It's more of a matter of mental hygiene than it has to do with money.
 
Here are the normalized directivity plots for the B2031A I measured a few years ago.

Horizontal:
726825d1546712576-preference-direct-radiators-abstrahlung-horizontal-png


Vertical:
726826d1546712576-preference-direct-radiators-abstrahlung-vertikal-png


And Patrick is right. The highs are too loud. You have to equalize amplitude response to get a neutral speaker.
 
This whole thread baffles me. For a start they were comparing apples with pairs...a dipole vs a small reflex box speaker. Why?

The way they energise the room is entirely different. As will be the case with cardioid, dipole, monopole.

I have no doubt the Behringers are great little speakers. I have a lot of respect for many of their products based on fact, not fiction or brand name.

If I have any criticism it's the markets desire to squeeze the lowest frequency possible from a cabinet by insisting on reflex loaded designs.

Sealed boxes may not look so good on paper, may not have quite the extension but will have better damped bass with a slower roll off and lower group delay.

More coaxial sealed cabinet designs please manufacturer's....let's break out from the ubiquitous and often flawed bass reflex design school of tbought and the bass driver plus "1" tweeter" because this is asking for trouble when it comes to off axis power delivery...the bass driver dispersion narrows when the tweeter is at its widest and unless the tweeter is very close to the bass driver you will always get lobing at crossover....

Just saying....
 
There must be something wrong. I could not stand listening to the Behringer B2031A
for more than 5 minutes. The sound was quite harsh, probably due to the class D amp in it. I think it would have been a more credible comparison if the Behringer B2031A
had a better amp.
No Class-D amps in it:
Behringer_Truth_B2031A_Amp_Internals.jpg

What we have here is 3 TDA7293 Class A/B chip by ST, two are run in parallel to power the 4 ohm woofer, the single is powering the tweeter. The shared power supply is using a toroidal transformer, two nice large smoothing caps, and it's all put together under a very thick sheet metal housing that acts as a heat sink.
Source: Behringer Truth B2031A Studio Monitor Review @ noaudiophile.com

Anyway I own the passive version (B2031P) and - even if are good for the price - I don't like the "kind" of sound produced.
The main problem is the bass-reflex load that - to me - isn't "usable" for studio monitoring applications where trasparency is the key.
 
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Actually, a couple of the B2031A iterations use LM3886 amps in the scheme. Regardless, no Class-D, and no DSP either. All the filtering/shelving/etc is done in the analog domain with standard op-amp circuitry. A fairly nice design actually.

Relative to many of the other active monitors that are on the market, this is a very well-built product.

Dave.
 
A local Cafe has a pair of passive Behringers and they sound quite decent, though a bit on the bright side. They are using them for a few years, so they haven't been toasted yet :) I think they are powering them with some sort of PA amp. I will have a better look next time.
Considering the price and that Behringers are still working, I think they are well worth it ;)
 
There must be something wrong. I could not stand listening to the Behringer B2031A
for more than 5 minutes. The sound was quite harsh, probably due to the class D amp in it. I think it would have been a more credible comparison if the Behringer B2031A
had a better amp.

Why would Earl want to get involved with this?

oJb9NRq.png


Here's the polar measurement of the B2031A that I measured last week. At the moment, these are my reference speakers, having replaced by trusty Vandersteens which have been banished to the garage now.

The measurements illustrate an irritating trend that I've noticed, which is that manufacturers are producing loudspeakers where the 'stock' response has a recessed midrange. It's very similar to what you see when people in the 70s and 80s would buy an EQ for their HiFi and immediately set the EQ to a "happy face shape" where the curve looks like a smile.

The Vandersteens don't do this.

I imagine this intentional response shape is there to move units; it will sound better in a demo situation.

The solution, obviously, is to flatten out the treble so that it's not so hot. Once the treble is dealt with, the B2031A sounds like a completely different speaker. In particularly, I was stunned at how much better it images.
 
Actually, a couple of the B2031A iterations use LM3886 amps in the scheme. Regardless, no Class-D, and no DSP either. All the filtering/shelving/etc is done in the analog domain with standard op-amp circuitry. A fairly nice design actually.

Relative to many of the other active monitors that are on the market, this is a very well-built product.

Dave.

Behringer_Truth_B2031A_Cabinet.jpg


Maybe the most impressive thing about the speaker is the cabinet. I've bought speakers at every price point from $40 to $4000 and I'm really not accustomed to cabinets like this.

"noaudiophile.com" wrote "MDF quality is very nice dense stuff, not the usual chinesium crap. The front baffle is a complicated heavily machined piece which is 1/2 inch behind the tweeter, and 1 1/8" behind the woofer which is precision flush mounted to the surface. The center brace is a solid 3/4 inch piece and all of the cabinet walls are covered in a thick carpet padding type material. This is a better box than the Infinity Primus, which was over built massively for the price point. I would say that only the B&W 686S2 beats the Behringer Truth's in cabinet construction quality of reviewed speakers.

Since it's a give that the speakers will need some EQ to tame the recessed midrange, it would be interesting to replace the entire front baffle and use an improved waveguide. Maybe extend the directivity cutoff from 3000hz to 2000hz.
 
Here are the normalized directivity plots for the B2031A I measured a few years ago.
Horizontal:
726825d1546712576-preference-direct-radiators-abstrahlung-horizontal-png

Vertical:
726826d1546712576-preference-direct-radiators-abstrahlung-vertikal-png

Hi and sorry to jump in ... but i am intrigued by these graphs as much as i do not understand them ... could you post a reference/ideal graph just for me to understand how it should look like ?

And Patrick is right. The highs are too loud. You have to equalize amplitude response to get a neutral speaker.
can a resistor in series with the tweeter solve this ? or better to think to a replacement ? 1" good tweeters can be found quite easily ...
now that i understand that amp and cabinet are well made i have regained interest in this project.

I have the very same speaker. I am afraid that a 8" woofer working at 2 kHz is too stretched ? i am even thinking to place an adapter ring and mount instead a 6.5-7" unit instead ... that can goes up in freq better. I would leave the wave guide only on the tweeter then. I would lose something in the bass but get much better upper mids in return.
Thank you sincerely.
 
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Hi ! thanks a lot for the very helpful link. I like this plot a lot even if i do not understand it well. I will start studying even if my present interest is very focused in this speaker i own.

Again on topic, ... is there an agreement about the fact that the best parts of the Behringer 2031a are the cabinet and the amps ?
then why not try some other drivers ? if a replacement could elevate their performance considerably ?
 
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Here are the normalized directivity plots for the B2031A I measured a few years ago.
Horizontal:
726825d1546712576-preference-direct-radiators-abstrahlung-horizontal-png

Vertical:
726826d1546712576-preference-direct-radiators-abstrahlung-vertikal-png

And Patrick is right. The highs are too loud. You have to equalize amplitude response to get a neutral speaker.

Hi and sorry again but considering only the woofer range (i.e. up to 2kHz from product specifications) what could be the reason of such different behaviour in the horizontal and vertical plane ? the horizontal performance looks quite perfect.
Did someone mention the effect of the front reflex ports ? cant it be ?
i would seal them immediately
For the tweeter i would try other drivers ... assuming that it is not a waveguide side effect of course.
 
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