Behringer P16-D (personal monitor distribution box)

[mojo filters]

It's just sad that Music Group , Beringher or Uli have such little regard for their end users. They rely on their distributors to sort the Sh*t out when it hits the fan.?

 

I'm surprised - the website and other promotional materials are covered in references to the "3 Year Warranty", with the moving parts exclusion quite visible, yet I'd never noticed the registration requirements until I looked for them.

 

Uli sent his staff on a charm offensive around the message boards and web forums various pros commonly use, around the time of the original X32 release. I was impressed how staff would go out of their way to be helpful, whenever an issue was raised in public. This sometimes meant ignoring strict interpretations of their policies, and sometimes rewarding outright user error.

 

Given the cost of a £100 retail price item to Music Group - I'd have thought a public gesture of goodwill, alongside the above reminder about the warranty registration requirements, would have been a cheap way to get some valuable positive publicity?

[paulears]

They're still doing it. There was a comment on here recently, and the usual stuff popped up. I emailed them and asked about my own warranty situation and got it sorted in about three hours. Last week, I spent more money on a Behringer product, and again - I'm very pleased with how they have always treated me.

[mojo filters]

They're still doing it. There was a comment on here recently, and the usual stuff popped up. I emailed them and asked about my own warranty situation and got it sorted in about three hours. Last week, I spent more money on a Behringer product, and again - I'm very pleased with how they have always treated me.

 

That's certainly the kind of experience I'd become used to hearing about. I usually manage to avoid any need to purchase equipment, except for bits and bobs for personal use. In terms of my work it's always a case of hiring rather than owning, so I never usually have to deal with issues such as warranty repairs.

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I also sometimes work or volunteer in the not-for-profit sectors. That's where I commonly see Behringer equipment, usually their cheapest analogue desks. As some gear is donated, all is old and most gets badly treated by users when unsupervised - I find it hard to work out exactly how that build quality compares to similar budget boards from manufacturers like Mackie, as well as ultra cheap brands like Phonic and that Chinese company that puts various names such as Carlsboro onto generic kit.

 

As I'm sure lots of folks here find, when you work or have worked in the sound reinforcement business - I often have friends and colleagues asking my advice about PA gear, even though I'm rarely properly equipped to state whether x or y is better. But Behringer's X32 family seems to come up more than most. Often musicians looking at self-contained monitor solutions, as that's normally the least adequate part of rigs installed in little local venues (certainly the biggest frustration I have if mixing in such venues).

 

Before the X32 family came along, it seemed mostly just the kind of function bands that earn good money at coporates and other events, who were able to afford a full band IEM or wedge rig usually based around an LS9. Now equivalent rigs are much more affordable - and whilst I don't have enough time on the X32 to advise around specific technical issues, I have pointed out to those skeptical of Behringer reliability the significant effort the company appeared to be going to, in order to change general perception about the brand.

 

I'm still surprised I don't see more IEM rigs based around X32s and P16s. I don't think I've ever seen anyone using the A&H Me system, even though I thought that controller was very smartly designed and user friendly, when I saw a demo. The older Aviom and dbx products still seem popular, even though the components seem quite expensive compared with more recent products, whilst the MY cards needed to interface with Yamaha digital seem very costly - although I guess that's true of many Yamaha peripherals!