Elsewhere in the guitar forum, Mac the Max (or is that Max the Mac?) wrote

Quote:

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I've got to say, that talking to some of the designers and engineers, it's a bit of a revelation....
many of them are really quite unhappy about the need to do things in a given manner in order to compete almost solely on price rather than actual performance....or life span. equipment more and more often has to be just thrown away and replaced instead of repaired when it fails ..... because the cost cutting designs made them economically unserviceable.... Respected, world renowned companies, known for their quality of product and of service, are literally forced to bang out cheap knock offs of their designs, build them in China, and ship em round the world back to, for example the uk, knowing that if it goes wrong within warranty, they'll merely throw it away and give you another one..... because it's not economically viable to pay a service engineer to open the box and have a look....
amongst other things... hardly sound ecological sense is it??
I'm still a consumer, just like anyone else.,... even if I make my living at it... and so I do appreciate the downwards trend in pricing over the last 20 years...
but there's a point where it should have stopped, with a view to both long term ecological sustainability, and product serviceability as well as sound quality...... and the Behringer phenomenon is at least partly responsible for us passing that point without even blinking.

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and at the same time this Music Technology forum is filled day-in-day-out with the same questions like "What monitors for £200?" or "Can I get a new multitracker for under £500?" and the usual "Is the B1 for £100 as good as a Neumann U87?" and so on.

Those of you who expect something for nothing, let me point out that you are actually getting less for your money when you look at the cheapest option. It works like this:

It costs as much to deliver a Mercedes for £50,000 as it does to deliver a Fiat for £5,000. Both cars take up as much space in the showroom and both cars involve as much paperwork. All together, it comes to about £500. That means that 10% of the Fiat is paperwork and delivery, but only 1% of the Mercedes. Also Fiat cars are very heavily advertised, so it is fairly safe to say that a similar amount falls on each and every car in advertising. Now the car company and the dealer have about £1,000 extra costs for both in after sales service. Fiats are cheaply built and therefore make heavier demands on after sales service in proportion to their costs. Mercedes customers are more demanding and the costs for an individual repair are far higher, but because the car is better built, it is less likely to break during the guarantee period.

All that means that the Mercedes dealer and manufacturer have £48,000 to spend on building the car and turn a profit and the Fiat manufacturer and dealer between them have just £3,000.

The same is true for audio. It costs the same to put the electronics in a metal box, print the box, put a mains cable in with the box, put that box in a styrofoam packing with a manual and a guarantee card and put all that in a package and tape the package shut and then ship that package to the dealer, whether it is a Universal Audio compressor for £1,700 or a Behringer Tube Composer for £80.

Both are 19" silver boxes with two-tone print and both have black knobs. One is built here and therefore labour costs will be higher, but the other is built in Shanghai and the transport and capital costs will be higher. The only difference between the two is the profit per unit and the cost of the build of the assembly inside that box.

The RRP of these two items is £100 and £2,000 respectively. (I took the Thoman / Music Store-Cologne price for the first prices.)

That means that the shop pays £60 and £1,200 for these two items. If we assume that each costs about £20 to paint, box and ship, that gives Universal Audio £1,180 to build its compressor and turn a profit, but Behringer has just £40 to build its compressor and have a profit.

Because of the higher handling costs and the commercial dangers of having to bulk buy, the cheaper an item is, the higher the profit has to be for the retailer. The extreme case is nylon Jack-plugs. They cost about 10p each in boxes of 1,000 and one sells them for a Pound (or some figure like that, I could look it up, but you get the idea!)

In pro-audio, one tends to buy from a dealer that gets either a handling fee or a small commission. He cannot reckon with a 60 / 40 mark-up (net to gross) as with guitars and synths, lights and drums. These are more expensive items and prices are high enough as it is without looking for normal retail mark-ups. Economically, they behave more like cars and less like carrots! Right at the top, big mixing desks are bought from the manufacturer and are commissioned months in advance with a 10% deposit (or whatever is agreed). It is not unusual for the manufacturer to make a loss on a big mixing desk, but he needs these sales to help establish and maintain his name and marque.

I am not advocating, or even implying, that you should quit buying cheap marques and only buy Avalon and Neve designs. The law of diminishing returns means that there has to be a common-sense barrier somewhere in the price range. There is BS at the top too.

But the next time you buy something cheap, ask yourself some questions. Questions like "Is it cheap because the shop is discounting boxes to clear old stock? Or is it cheap because it is slightly soiled? Perhaps it's cheap because the manufacturer is discounting to keep the doors to the factory open. It may even be that it is cheap because the competition has been too expensive for far too long - after all, a passive DI box is just a transformer and three plugs in a case, a headphone amp is just a couple of modules, a passive speaker distribution controller is just switches and wires."

But it could be that it is cheap because there is nothing of value inside it.

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www.the-byre.com No longer Forum Member

All of which I would agree with and then, every now and again, I come across a cheap, little gem.

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Google less; read more!

Yeah, but then again Behringer is a God-send for people who dont want to shell out thousands just so they can make a quick demo of their band. The way I see it is that Professionals pay higher prices, and get better products, and beginners pay lower prices, and get budget quality stuff, but it will get them going.

For example, for my "home studio", I have an ST Audio 8 i/o PCI interface, and it cost me about £100 on ebay. I *could* have bought a Delta 1010, but it would have cost me more than twice the price. Yes, my ST Audio device is a little tempremental at times, but for the amount I use it, it does the job very well. The M-Audio on the other hand would be a lot more stable, therfore essential for someone who will use it day in day out.

I think people should just expect to get what they pay for and no more, exept for CME controller keyboards, because their amazing for the money

Gareth x

It boils down to the music. Does the end result sound any good. Yes?. Cool - doesn't matter what technology you used. Its all given way too much importance IMO. I've heard crap recorded on top gear and genius recorded on crap.

Excepting that I have yet to come across a piece of Behringer kit that sounded anything like useful, this includes exactly 6 pieces of Behringer kit that I bought in the triumph of hope over common sense over the years and sold again pretty much immediately. Having said which, I made a profit on all of them, (with the exception of a small desk which I gave away to a friend), so someone must like 'em.

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Google less; read more!

I'm sure you've seen this before but no harm giving it another outing - I think it's from a poem by John Ruskin (1819 - 1900) but can't be sure:

Quote:

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It’s unwise to pay too much. But it’s worse to pay too little.

When you pay too much, you lose a little money, that is all. When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.

The common law of business balances prohibits paying a little and getting alot. It can’t be done.

If you deal with the lowest bidder it is well to add something for the risk you run.

And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.

There is hardly anything in the world that someone can’t make a little worse and sell a little cheaper — and people who consider price alone are this man’s lawful prey.

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getting better all the time..

Quote Phil Marcus:

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It boils down to the music. Does the end result sound any good. Yes?. Cool - doesn't matter what technology you used. Its all given way too much importance IMO. I've heard crap recorded on top gear and genius recorded on crap.

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Phil

There is a certain amount of this, however you do reach the stage when you're asking Django to play a rubber band guitar, which you wouldn't do to him, so why do it to yourself.

More importantly, for those of us for whom it is still about the raw music, your comment holds true, but for those of us who are being asked for product, be it engineering expertise or audio product for the "wholesale" end of the music market, people don't want your music to sound professional, they require it.

Basically, there is a point where your money might be better spent on a few beers and a decent curry. If the budget you were about to spend doesn't even stretch to that, then it is likely that you need to save more before making a buy.

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Google less; read more!

Oh sure, I respect that. But there are plenty of musicians out there who achieve professional results from seemingly crap gear. I mean, monitors like the Absolute 2s are frowned upon by many and yet I know a few tv composers who've used them. A mate of mine does a lot of field recording for foley in the states and amongst his equipment is a fifty quid Behringer mixer!. He swears it works just great.

I long subscribed to the opinion that cheap gear = cheap results but this past couple of years I'm really beginning to doubt it and the standard of equipment for such a cheap cost is really quite extraordinairy now. And a fair few people I work with are making some great recorings on humble gear.

Everyone knows that you can't get a decent mic for a tenner, you need at least double that!!!

Behringer is ok for the poorer musician. The beginner on a budget? Some of their gear is ok, adequate, does the job, maybe not great, but decent enough.

So maybe not commercial studio standard, but at home, fine.

It may break down quicker than some brands, it may not?

What's better a little behringer mixer or no mixer? "No mixer" a few cry, tell that to the struggling musician who can only really afford little cash.

erm .. what rubbish, sorry .. what about the fact that if you sell a million of a unit you can do it cheaper than if you sell ten ? .. the alesis monitor ones for 100 quid are the same monitors (probably better) as the alesis monitor ones they used to sell in the 1990's for 300 quid (which were award winning monitors and were used in almost as many pro studios as the cheaper yamaha ns10's), its just that theyve sold millions of pairs in that time and they can afford to knock them out much cheaper.

what about rode mics, they came out of the blue to show you can make an exceptional mic for less than 200 quid. as you keep saying mics and monitors are 'mature technology' that means it can only get cheaper.

the only behringer kit i have at the moment is the src2496 da/ad for 80 quid it does an excellent job that other boxes do for 3 or 4 times that price at least

i dont think any pro studio would buy behringer or maybe even alesis or rode, and that is part of why the pro studio will charge so much for its time .. but this equipment is absolutely fine for people to get a quite accurate idea of what their music sounds like

i really think you are suffering from some snobbery somewhere behind your self-justification for wasting so much cash, mate sorry ...

cheers
grainger

I'm quite sure the Max and The Byre are perfectly aware that this phenomenon isn't confined to music gear... pretty much all domestic electronics and white goods are routinely chucked rather than repaired.

I'm all for carefully designed, hand built gear but, frankly, there's precious little of it around.

Also, taking The Byre's idea a bit further.... I can't afford a merc. What's more I wouldn't expect to have a merc as my first car... Just as a U87 is hardly a beginners mic purchase.

There's always been compromise between the design and marketing, it's nothing new.

Ironically Mercedes quality control had a total breakdown recently and the company was obliged to recall 1.3 million cars due to faulty engineering - not just one fault either, several different ones!

But I'd still take a 2nd hand one over a new Fiat anyday!

and the old monitor ones, as many people DO know, are significantly better than the new ones....

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Battenburg to the power of 20 - said by Richie Royale in a moment of genius. 4pm. Wed 16th Nov 2011. Remember where you were....

Quote grAInger:

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erm .. what rubbish, sorry .. what about the fact that if you sell a million of a unit you can do it cheaper than if you sell ten ?

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Exactly. Economically, Behringer can do many things FAR more efficiently than LA Audio or Thermionic Culture. They buy parts in bulk, transport in bulk, and manufacture in bulk using cheap labour and automated processes.

Not to mention the fact that a large portion of the cost of equipment is R&D, not parts or manufacturing. Behringer can spread these costs over many thousands of units, smaller companies can not. Furthermore, Behringer R&D costs are far FAR smaller to begin with, because they just copy someone else's design! (They do have to pay lots of lawyer bills though...)

I know people who have made part-for-part clones of SSL compressors for a FRACTION of the cost. Try that with a Behringer and you'd be paying more for parts than the whole thing costs in the shops.

But who's comparing Behringer to LA Audio etc anyway? It's not like people are sitting in their studios going: "hmm Behringer Composer or Thermionic Culture Phoenix... Which would be the more economic compressor to buy?".

Hey,
At the end of the day, if the singers Crap and song is crap...its gonna be crap. I met an amzing singer once and we recorded a wicked sounding demo on my Fantom an emu 04 04 and a battered sm58. Ive moved up a bit now, but I've had some singers come into my studio who simply make it impossible to get the results that we got on that little demo......I just did what you told me, pushed a little 12k......swept out a bit of "honk"...sounds sweet. though my Rodek2 rules!!! I love it!

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Sorry, never could do joined'e'uppy writing...
[url=http://www.mcorbitmusic.com]

It's like never ordering the cheapest wine on a restarant wine list (after costs, tax, storage, serving-staff costs etc that £10 bottle means you get about 25 pence worth of wine. Buy a £12 bottle and you get £2.25 worth of wine, i.e. something nine times "better").

The real issue is service. I have a couple of Samson Q5 headphone amps. Not exactly high end stuff, but serviceable, and £100+ for a headphone amp is not exactly a junkshop price either. One needs a new power supply. I can't get one. The thing was discontinued all of a year ago (approx) and everybody just shrugs in a "what do you expect" kind of way.

Sound Technology are trying, but I am not hopeful. I know I can cobble together an alternative 16v AC supply, despite Samson's dire warnings of the consequences of using anythnig but their own product, but that's hardly the point, is it? I can't really imagine getting this kind of response from Neve or Neumann or indeed a lot of people in the middle ground like say TLA or Dbx etc.

My personal guideline these days is to treat any "budget" gear as throwaway items, because if it goes wrong you are almost certainly out on a limb.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Whats better? to sit and sing/play by yourself or to record your own stuff and listen to it and hear where you could do better?

sometimes this subject is treated like its only a case of making radio-ready music..
how big a part of musicians actually make a living off it you think?? 0.005% maybe? and maybe 10% of these have their own pro studio, the rest goes to a commerial studio.. assuming my numbers is right, the "pro-quality is the ONLY way" approach would only apply to 0.0005% of all musicians, right?

plus, i dont know about audio gear, but in a tv-store (here in denmark) it cost £50 just for the store to look at your broken equipment.. then the cost of repairing and spare parts is added.. this easily totals at least £100.. if we just assumes the numbers is similar in an audio-store and a cheap mic costs £50 then whats the point of repairing it??

Edited by KidCracken (30/10/05 02:28 PM)

I think the real issue here is in the marketing of budget products *and some wise soul has already mentioned it applies to everything, not just music recording*...

I think we all accept that high end products are subjectively better than budget ones most of the time *except in a few bizarre cases*

I think we all accept that its possible to make great music with budget gear if you know how.

I think we all accept that there is a crossover point between home and pro setups at which better quality results can be achieved, and that that point varies for each individual artist and project...for example countless amazing sounding electronic records are made at home, whereas it would just not be possible to produce Norah Jones in a bedroom etc etc.

So I'm thinking that the reason this topic seems to come up again and again is that Joe Public is constantly being told that if he has a mac and a samson usb mic, he has a recording studio in a box, and that his results will be 'professional'. He is not only told this, he's PROMISED it. So it's no real surprise therefore that the huge numbers of people who love music and want to make it at home, come onto these forums to find out why they're not 100% satisfied with their results...and that's when they find out that *disregarding the artists for a second* great results come from experience...and that excellent results come from experience coupled with the right tools.

Perhaps if budget gear manufacturers used slogans like "Sounds really half decent actually" and "surprisingly ok for the money" or "not the best thing you've ever heard, but not the worst either" we'd be furter along the road to making music and accepting the limitations of our budgets.

J

Quote grAInger:

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...what about rode mics, they came out of the blue to show you can make an exceptional mic for less than 200 quid. as you keep saying mics and monitors are 'mature technology' that means it can only get cheaper.

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NO - mature technology means that it does not get cheaper, it can only get more expensive.

If the technology is mature it means that most of the developments have taken place, all the ways to manufacture more efficiently have been done. You can't make it cheaper and the price will therefore go up with inflation. An MKH 40 that cost just under £400 when it was introduced in 1985 now costs over £1,000 - that's mature technology - and if you bought one in £1985 for £395 it has cost you £19.75 a year and much cheaper than a cheap Chinese mic. you throw away when it goes wrong after a year and have to buy a new one!

And Røde, no, they are not exceptional; just good value for money at a reasonable price. You get what you pay for. You can't compare a Røde NT5 with a Neumann TLM 184, for example. You get what you pay for.

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John - Sound-Link ProAudio
President - Federation Internationale des Chasseurs de Sons

sorry john but i think thats wrong, Rode make exceptional mics for less than 200 quid which you CAN obviously compare to a neuman and maybe the neuman is a touch better for certain things (though i bet the neuman is noisier) and its up to the individual to decide if that touch better is worth a grand or not.

ive also got joe meek 3q pre amps .. ive seen them compared favourably to machines costing 10 times as much, mebbe someone should tell the reviewers they CANT do that

and as for 'mature technology' of course it will get cheaper, by volume of production.

what complete snobbery

grainger

If an item, has matured like john says, and costs X amount, not matter how many they make it will still cost that same X and will increase with inflation, as John said.. it might become cheaper for a while if they flood the market (make smaller profit on many), but there's only so far that can go with 'Mature technology' because there will be that point where they either raise the price or make a loss!!

I wouldn't say John was being snobbish in anyway! Think he had a fair point!

hi, sorry, but nothing works like that, if you sell more you can do it cheaper and cheaper. i bet they sell a hell of a lot more pre amps, mics, compressors etc etc than they did 20 years ago. so its only right that companies like rode and joe meek find they can do it much cheaper than the established names who are clinging onto their profits

the snobbery was in the last sentence. of course rode make exceptional mics, compare them to whatever you like and they sound good. to ignore that is blind snobbery in my book, sorry

cheers
grainger

> If an item, has matured like john says, and costs X amount, not matter how many they make it will still cost that same X and will increase with inflation

I don't agree. That's assuming a manufacturer adds X% profit to each product they make, and continue doing this for the life of the product. This clearly isn't the case for a number of items, many of which despite being out for years still have price cuts.

Then of course their's outsourcing overseas to cut prices, something many manufacturers have done with existing mature products, which have had subsequent reductions in price.

I'm sorry Grainger, but I respectfully have to side with John on this...

I've used Rode mics a lot, and they're a quality product at a great price...I would recommend them to anyone looking in that price bracket...but they are overly bright to the point of being a little harsh on some sources...even the lovely classic II which I've had the pleasure of using a great deal is very bright...I absolutely loved it at first for doing the warm valve plus airy sound, but over time I found the top end to be a problem and it's an issue throughout the rode range, as well as with most of the other cheaper mics. Dont get me wrong, if I went to a job where it was Rode mics and nothing else I wouldn't fuss about it, but they're not exceptional. They're solid and decent.

J

A motor industry CEO once told me that in the £20k price difference between a £35k Porsche Boxter and a £15k Ford, about £10k is attributable to higher quality components, engineering etc., and £10k down to the greater expense of low volume production.

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Couple of our songs here http://www.mixposure.com/song.php?songid=9706

I know for a fact that some of the cheaper behringer products were used in the recording and mixing of certain commercially successful albums cause I was making the tea in the studio whilst it was being done. There was also an SSL desk in the mix as well....

The Byre's point seems to be that most things of a lower cost are going to be detrimental tot he recording process...and he's probably right - but there are more important factors that contribute more to the recording than just the gear....performance/attitude/knowledge/band dynamics etc etc - Sure - you would get a "technically" better recording at the Byres than at my studio ( by a factor of about 100) but mines cheaper and allows my fellow band musicians and I to record what we create.....we'd then use someone like the byres facilities to technically better our recordings - but we'd have done most of the groundwork in the rehersal room/on the behringer dx3216/in the local pub before committing to a pricey but worthwhile recording.

The behringer phenominon has opened recording to those musicians who would have still been playing live...but now can use the internet and the £1000 studio to get their music out there....cause the A&R men/5 major lables/commecial studios sure aint interested. - Behringer may have been partial;y responsible in creating a "falsehood" that every bedroom recordist can make a pro recording - but they've also re-created the "indy" vibe that takes music back from being a capitalist commodity to returning to its roots......


.....I know what I prefer......you can now go and see bands playing live every day of the week in birmingham now....and the standard of local acts has risen, cause the listener won't accept bad sound like he used to.....the disco's are closing down to make way for places like the acadamy...and the scene is revitalising itself. It MUST be partly due to the fact that you can mike up your band for less than a decent laptop....and sell a cd for £1 and still make your m
oney back....that the parents of 14-16 yr olds will pay for recording equipment cause its in the same league as an xbox 360 and gets those kids out-there making music.

...it's how i started - with a £250 drumkit....and an amega with soundtracker....and although I am one of the 99.9% of musicians who don't make a complete living from music - i've had my moments and entertained some people....

so ....don't bash the behringer (oooeer) to hard....it's meant that people like ssl neve etc have had to buck their Ideas up, and created a senario where we're actually getting better music than ever - we have the BBC with 6 music promoting less than perfectly recorded music - but which shines above the likes of the x-factor in terms of entertainment....which has got to be good - right?

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http://soundcloud.com/seaapes

Sorry grainger, not snobbery, but you need to listen.

With higher prices you do get the rule of diminishing returns, so twice the price does not necessarily mean twice the quality.

But I have listened to Røde mics and I appreciate their good points and have also heard their deficiencies. They are very good value for money, but you do get what you pay for.

And, personally, I do not like the Neumann as much as I do the Sennheiser. But I listen ...

But having said all this, with "pop" music, you are creating a product, rateher than capturing a performance and go for the equipment that gives you the sound you want...

Snobbery, definately and loudly NO! - but in my own recxordings I always strive for the best I can do.

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John - Sound-Link ProAudio
President - Federation Internationale des Chasseurs de Sons

Quote grAInger:

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... if you sell more you can do it cheaper and cheaper.

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No - only to a certain extent. Push too far and quality drops.

Røde acheive it by using cheap labour - Sennheiser evolution acheive it by automation.

But the best mics by all the major manufacturers are crafted products and you can only go so far before quality drops.

I spend a lot of money on top quality mics because they give the results, are consistant, and last. In fact, they woork out cheaper. I still have my old Beyer M67s which I bought back in about 1970.

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John - Sound-Link ProAudio
President - Federation Internationale des Chasseurs de Sons

ok jack i respectfully accept yr point .. but the 'exceptional' quality of rodes includes their price, you cant say theres much else that beats them overall at the price can you ? besides top ends can always be tamed with a nice eq, but they cant be put back afterwards can they ? also, are there any other large condenser mics that have 6db self noise ? thats pretty exceptional to me

the car analogy gets on me nerves to be honest, but look at range rovers, massive price tag, expensive parts, gas guzzling and as unreliable as any 5 grand runaround

i think the low price of gear nowadays is part of the reason theres so much bloody good music about, if theres more gear around people have the chance to capture ideas with pretty good fidelity in their own time, which only a few years ago would they would have to pay by the hour (and through the nose) for. there is more chance to catch lady lucks occasional inspirations for everyone ... that is NOT a bad thing. (except for those who want to keep it for themselves ... thats what i call snobbery)

cheers
grainger

I don't dispute the essence of what you say - it's the use of "exceptional" and "snobbery" I take issue with.

Røde are excellent value for money, but I have heard a Røde mic. crackling away due to moisture in the air under normal acoustic conditions and goes very crackly if the humidity rises (as lots of other AF condensers do, of course, nothing against Røde per se).

Using quality mics is not snobbery - if you don't strive for the best quality can only go down.

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John - Sound-Link ProAudio
President - Federation Internationale des Chasseurs de Sons

Hmmm . . . Don't I remember a 'debate' involving the figure of £5.36?

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PA stuff on FB

lol

john, look, in 20 or 30 years the technology of making gold sputtered diaghragms (and all the other components of a condenser mic) has advanced massively, so the price has dropped, nothing has been lost. why SHOULD a mic still cost the same ? nothing else does so why mics ? do you honestly believe any industrial manufacturer doesnt use the cheapest labour that it can ? just for old times sake or what ?

the old adage doesnt always hold true, you do NOT always get what you pay for, sometimes youre just paying for a name

ps im only reacting to the byres original inflammatory post, what is this forum for if not for learners to ask the questions they need answering ? it gets on me tits when a newbie gets jumped on for asking the monitor question again ? if you dont want to read them or answer them then dont ... the situation is changing constantly and each new poster has a set of precise needs including budget.

pps of course i agree with your last point, but the 'best' is for the high end users who can make money out of their purchases. the technology then trickles down to the rest of us.

ppps ive NEVER heard my rode nt1000 crackle with humidity, are you really, saying rode mics are more prone to this than ANY other mic ? come on ...

cheers
grainger

Quote Jack:

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whereas it would just not be possible to produce Norah Jones in a bedroom etc etc.

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I would be quite happy to produce Norah Jones in my bedroom . . . err . . . OK . . . I'll get me coat!



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Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Quote John Willett:

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Røde acheive it by using cheap labour - Sennheiser evolution acheive it by automation.

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Actually, John, if the information contained in Paul White's SOS article on the Røde manufacturing process is truthful (and I can only assume it is), Røde are INDEED now accomplishing the cost savings by using automation rather than cheap Chinese labour, so perhaps your statement is not really fair or unbiased in this case? (Unless you know something I don't, which of course is entirely possible.)

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Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

have so many missed the point by so far.....

not to mention displayed such a devout ignorance of economics and business practices.


Let me start by saying I labelled a market sector trend "The Behringer phenomenon" I did not actually cite use of their equipment so directly...

And in fact the actual sonic quality was not the whole core of my initial comment, which Byre reproduced and perhaps only slightly misrepresented. BUT it was relevant to the discussion of the moment in the thread I posted it in, which explains the perhaps slightly inaccurate interpretation.

Equipment from ANY manufacturer which by it's very design and market placement, is defined as utterly uneconomic to service or repair, simply SHOULD NOT EXIST. In the short term it is pandering to the greed and the materials acquisition instinct of the public, who always want a free lunch, or at ;least the illusion of something close to it....

in the long term it is economically and ecologically unsustainable.,..

it's largely fair to say that it does exist in our industry , because of Uli Behringer and his Company's approach to business.

The happenstance that The Behringer gear IS largely fairly poor in many ways is irrelevant to my point...

So Whilst Byre's point is a fair one, it's also missing my point.

Those who doubt the validity of either , or the truth that the Behringer effect exists, should read back in SOS about say 10 years or so....


Compare the prices of equipment then to now, and adjust for inflation and currency valuation....

then look at the quality

to take examples of which i have direct personal knowledge....


Focusrite.,

The Platinum Range.

is their Acknowledged "budget" range, and is credited with having kept them in business... and that it's inception was as a response, directly, to the Existence of Behringer's ranges and their constant downwards pressure on market sector pricing.

Previously the Green range was their "budget range" and the two don't really compare..... in terms of performance OR cost.

The margins are small enough to keep the MD in the position of being tight with every penny , Their service dept doesn't even have a suitable test chamber or equipment to allow proper fault tracing and comparative analysis of Mic pre's for example........ the investment levels required are considered to be unwarranted , given that the huge majority of returned equipment is platinum

TLA

Look back about 10 years to the Indigo and Crimson Ranges, and their list prices (before the then Music village ,now Digital Village, stock clearanced the entire range just prior to the Ivory's announcement.... ) were in the £7-800 + range, NOT the £3-400 range the Ivory series inhabits...

why the change?? (to what many feel is an inferior product i might add (thus the revival of a product in the market position of the indigo series with the "classic" series... )

again, it's the downwards pressure induced by the Discount culture in certain retail sectors, and competition from inferior product on price NOT performance.... combined with the native greed of the average consumer.


look at it like this

you have a choice.
you can buy 2 channels of quality valve compressor for £750 ish...

or 20 Channels of Behringer composer for the same money.

the review of the composer said "it's really very good for the money"

comparing it to the next price bracket up, or maybe the one above that....

and the Review of the Tube device in question also said "it's really very good for the money. "
likewise comparatively assessed against the next higher price bracket type of equipment.... as well as on it's own merits.

which one does Joe bloggs go an buy??

largely the deComposer.... it's sadly Human nature

then buys several other toys as well..


ultimately though he'd probably make better sounding recordings with fewer toys, but of better quality, AND if or When they break down, then there's a reasonable chance of actually having it repaired.... and continuing to get use out of it for many many years. rather than throwing it away and buying a new one.....




It's common human nature to want a free lunch, and in effect that's what Behringer have been marketing.


and why they have such significant sales figures, however, i would add that they haven't been achieved solely by way of creation of new sales, but more by way of stealing sales from other market sectors.... like the more expensive ones....

In the past musicians have still bought Compressors, and EQ, and Reverb and so on, but they've saved longer and harder to do it... and used studio facilities when they couldn't do so any other way....


So now more music gets made..., well probably not as such, we were makiug it before we had access to recording gear as such but certainly More gets recorded for posterity..... which has it's plus sides....



but it has some down sides as well


The White Stripes.

I rest my Case


it's Not NECESSARILY the Equipment I have issue with in terms of the "Behringer bashing" although I do object to many of their rack units... coz their PSU's buzz annoyingly...


SOME of it actually does a creditable job regardless of cost.

But the Ethics, economics and i suppose, the long term ecological implications , now that's entirely another matter.,




Max

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if you don't know who i am, i aint gonna tell you.

Quote grAInger:

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ok jack i respectfully accept yr point .. but the 'exceptional' quality of rodes includes their price, you cant say theres much else that beats them overall at the price can you ? besides top ends can always be tamed with a nice eq, but they cant be put back afterwards can they ? also, are there any other large condenser mics that have 6db self noise ? thats pretty exceptional to me

the car analogy gets on me nerves to be honest, but look at range rovers, massive price tag, expensive parts, gas guzzling and as unreliable as any 5 grand runaround

i think the low price of gear nowadays is part of the reason theres so much bloody good music about, if theres more gear around people have the chance to capture ideas with pretty good fidelity in their own time, which only a few years ago would they would have to pay by the hour (and through the nose) for. there is more chance to catch lady lucks occasional inspirations for everyone ... that is NOT a bad thing. (except for those who want to keep it for themselves ... thats what i call snobbery)

cheers
grainger

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Er yes, I can think of several Mics I prefer to the Rodes at similar prices...



Groove Tubes for one.



"tamed with a nice EQ"

Hmm. which cost several times the price of the Mic's in question, sound economic sense that....

not to mention the potential technical sonic "issues" like phase shifting and such....




Oh well.....

it's not really important, in the grand scale of things I suppose.... indeed, there's a reasonable argument to say our entire industry is really irrelevant to the basics of Life on earth .......

Max

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if you don't know who i am, i aint gonna tell you.

Quote Max The Mac:

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[.. indeed, there's a reasonable argument to say our entire industry is really irrelevant to the basics of Life on earth .......

Max

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But there wasn't a mic, a recorder and sound guy to record the sucking sound of intelligent life rising from the primordial soup, how would we know it had happened?

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Andrew

Call it "snobbery", call it what you want, but there is a considerable quality difference between a pair of NT5s and a pair of KM184s. The KM184 sound so much better than the NT5s, it is not even close.

I have both pairs of mics, and have compared them directly many times. A lot of the folks (not all) that think that the NT5s sound as good, have never really heard the KM184s, and really don't know the difference.

It is pretty easy to think something sounds great and "just as good as the big guys" until you actually hear the big guys...then you know what everyone is talking about.

Are the ROde's rubbish? Of course not. They are good value for the money as has been mentioned.

Are they disposable? In my opinion, yes. If they go down, they go in the dust bin.

I am sure I am going to get flammed for the next bit, but I am just trying to stimulate conversation here, so be easy on me!

I understand all the posts claiming that Behringer-like gear has helped "starving" musicians and engineers get their start. This is true...but you could also argue that maybe that is not a good thing in all cases!!!

It has certainly led to a lot of folks with the freedom to do their own thing in their own place, but it has also led (in my opinion) to a lot of people making recordings that don't know what they are doing, and in a lot of cases, it sounds like it!

You could take this a step further and claim that it has hurt the industry overall by taking business away from the project studios, and then from the bigger studios, and the industry is currently in a shambles overall.

Rather than paying our dues, and learning the trade, we can set up shop in our bedrooms with a cheap Behringer mixer, a $75 sound card, a $100 Chinese condenser, a $100 DAW, and $200 monitors.

So for less than $500, you have a "studio-in-a-box". That is all great, but unfortunately, the results can be pretty sad without any knowledge of what is going on. What is really sad, is that a lot of folks think that this sounds great, but a lot of that might be due to not knowing the difference.

Of course, the argument here is that "you have to learn it somehow...". I understand that, but the advent of cheap and cheerful home recording gear has spawned an entire generation of home recordists that think that their bedroom recordings sound "good enough".

It gives freedom at the same time that it hurts those professionals that have made this their career, and the quality manufacturers that just can't compete with the Behringers of the world in a market that can't tell the difference.

Just look at the MP3 explosion. It is amazing how many folks can't hear the difference between an MP3 and an audio CD recording.

We have created a generation of "good enough"...in more ways than one.

Flame suit on...

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James
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" ~Napoleon Bonaparte~

Quote Grim Audière:

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Quote Max The Mac:

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[.. indeed, there's a reasonable argument to say our entire industry is really irrelevant to the basics of Life on earth .......

Max

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But there wasn't a mic, a recorder and sound guy to record the sucking sound of intelligent life rising from the primordial soup, how would we know it had happened?

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actually , you know what.... you should go looking in the depths of Auntie's archives....

I bet you'd find it

Max

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if you don't know who i am, i aint gonna tell you.