I surely cannot be the only one rubbing my eyes in some disbelief at the price for which this system is apparently available... I've always struggled to justify the fairly considerable spend on existing systems (looking at you, Aviom) and even with a digital mixer the buy-in personal mixers are phenomenally expensive (your turn, Roland): but the B'ger units are retailing from a certain German wholesaler at just south of £130 each with a hub not much more.

Somebody, please, give me a good reason why I shouldn't be seriously considering a £700 investment to move my venue to a silent stage?

Can't give you a reason in relation to the Behringer set-up - it looks very interesting... BUT some musos - especially amateurs who aren't very confident - can take a long time to get used to IEMS. Some seemingly never do. IME they also need some help and guidance as vocalists have a tendency to start singing for/to themselves rather than projecting out into the room.

You probably knew all that anyway, but it is something to take into account before making 'the switch'.

Turtles, I know what you mean.
For less than the price of a Yamaha LS9-16, you could get the X32 desk, 2 x S16 stage pre-amps and half a dozen personal mixers.
That's a 32 channel digital desk, 48 channel digital snake and personal monitors FOR LESS THAN A LS9.
It certainly is worth thinking about.
The name Behringer doesn't seem to be associated with quality or reliability (or in some legal cases, originality), but with this series of products it may be on to something. Don't forget, the desk was developed with their newly acquired Midas division. They may just have got some quality into the picture.

I just can't help thinking about the reliability side of things.

Stu.

Quote turtles:

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I surely cannot be the only one rubbing my eyes in some disbelief at the price for which this system is apparently available...

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One thing that I've noticed is the use of direct outs, which is most medium/low range desks isn't switchable between pre and post, it's normally pre, so that'd have hamper things slightly (comfort reverb etc). However, my desk has full 16 ADAT out, and from the diagram that'd be enough to feed the M16-i with the necessary post fader signals.

In my experience of not only playing live with IEM, but also generally having to manage the entire on-stage sound for the bands I play in, few musicians would need so much control. Once I've done the IEM sound for each person it rarely changes, or if it does, it's normally done at the sound check. It'd be useful for me, but only because I tend to engineer the show and need to hear everything, but I can do that directly from the Presonus.

If there was a rack-mounted option, i.e. not the desktop version shown, that allowed each person to setup their sound from the main rack, and then IEM to themselves, then I think that'd be a winner, but having another box/toy on stage for each musician would just be a bloody nightmare.

Quote TheChorltonWheelie:

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One thing that I've noticed is the use of direct outs, which is most medium/low range desks isn't switchable between pre and post, it's normally pre, so that'd have hamper things slightly (comfort reverb etc). However, my desk has full 16 ADAT out, and from the diagram that'd be enough to feed the M16-i with the necessary post fader signals.

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Err why would that be an issue exactly? You have control to bring verb/etc. down on your mixer, and really even if it was an issue it would be a cakewalk to run a single aux out of a console for this purpose considering you aren't running much in the way of monitors anymore. I would hate having to deal with post fade on these systems, recipe for headaches.

That being said, the number one reason I am hesitant about this solution is of course Behringer. Their reputation for quality is less than stellar, to put it mildly, and they have a nasty habit of failing exactly when you need them. Even carrying a double of everything, which at that price you could, I am not certain I would consider it for much. Avioms take one heck of a beating and keep going, I can't imagine Behringer coming close in this regards given their past track records.

Seablade

Has anyone actually used these? They've been on the cards for over a year and even now even our German friends are out of stock.

Quote Peeb:

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Has anyone actually used these? They've been on the cards for over a year and even now even our German friends are out of stock.

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They haven't shipped in the UK yet, so I doubt if anyone will have had a chance to test them. The same applies for their digital mixer, £2k, but that was "released" last year and it still hasn't started shipping.

Shame as I think both of these products would do Behringer's reputation no end of good (if their specs/performances are to be believed).

Well.

Six Behringer P16 mini mixers and one hub, now sitting in front of me in shiny boxes, waiting for a quiet-ish live evening to try out. Good old StudioSpares had some stock just in and were cheaper than everyone else...

First impressions are very favourable certainly at the price. Nicely constructed, and the hub would not look out of place in any stage rack. Further updates to follow once I've actually used the things in anger.

wow - finally! Would be really interested how you are getting on with these, very tempted,

I'm concerned that you're effectively forcing the people who play at your venue to use IEM.

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Good point. Rationale below.

Firstly, it's a 750-seater HoW venue. The four bands are relatively fixed and play in the same venue regularly. Many of them are used to IEMs from the larger events they do from time to time. I've got ambient/ stage noise mics in the design so the 'live' feel is still there for the musicians, even if they want to use full-occlusive moulds/drummer.

Secondly, the benefits of constraining stage noise, and reducing load on the (single) FOH engineer, are considerable and worth the hassle for me IMHO. Assuming the desk has a set-and-forget basic routing preset (which it will), the musicians will always have 12 direct channels of their own audio to mix to taste, regardless of engineer expertise or stress level. This leaves my FOH person free to concentrate on the FOH...

Thirdly, who said anything about forcing IEMs? I have a load of Fostex 6301s and have good experience of using these as micro monitors- great on top of a keyboard, for example. Singers, I'd expect to be more comfortable with a light pair of over-ear buds to start with. The clincher here is individual mixes over Cat5, NOT IEMs- I could do IEMs with Rolls beltpacks.

Fourthly, if it doesn't work out, it's only £700 spend and the resale will be close to that for sure

Fair enough if it's always going to be the same musicians, and they know what to expect. I used to do touring bands, and they (or their engineers) always wanted wedges, or were carrying their own IEM.

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Quote Dave Gate:

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I'm concerned that you're effectively forcing the people who play at your venue to use IEM.

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I don't see how you've come to that conclusion.

The fact that these units are wireless means that that can also be used to drive monitor wedges too, but without the cumbersome/intrusive cables, and that has to be a good thing.

Quote TheChorltonWheelie:

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Quote Dave Gate:

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I'm concerned that you're effectively forcing the people who play at your venue to use IEM.

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I don't see how you've come to that conclusion.

The fact that these units are wireless means that that can also be used to drive monitor wedges too, but without the cumbersome/intrusive cables, and that has to be a good thing.

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If you read the OP's original post he talks of moving his venue to a silent stage. That says IEM to me (although I guess the instruments would still make some sort of noise).

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How do these units work in the situation of a multicore to a FOH mixer then? I can see how they would be brilliant if we were running a mix from on stage, with a snake connecting the direct outs to the dist unit.

An onstage splitter I guess, or do you have the dist unit at FOH and then run the cat5 to the stage?

You'd have the main unit next to the FoH desk, feeding a single CAT5 back to stage. In the pit you can either daisy chain the individual mixers (up to a certain limited number) or have a distro feeding them separately. Or a combination of the two if you have lots of musos to feed.

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There's nothing we can't face... Except for bunnies

I cannot comment on these Behringer In-The-Ear things, but we bought a set of Behringer headphone amps and it is no exaggeration to say that the line drivers on the line outputs on our desk are considerably better and louder (on headphones) than the headphone outs on those things.

I tried to use the headphone amps as simple line drivers for foldback into a 2k load and they all slowly deteriorated after a few months! It must take real effort to be that bad!

BTW, if you want to give everyone a separate mix, give them a separate small mixer! We use Phonic baby mixers - works a treat!

Much as it pains me to do so, disagree with TRB. HA4700s have been rocksolid for me over several years.


Baby mixers work fine but need lots of splits or runs. Messy on stage particularly without installed conduit. Once mixers and cable runs added up, cost for equivalent functionality is more than the p16 system.

I'm going to put the 'brain' in the backstage/ sidestage rack. I have 16 returns on the stage end of the digital multi, so 8 of those can be permanently assigned as direct / subgroup outs from the desk, then go straight to the 'brain'. Then, single cat5 cables from there across to the musicians dotted across the stage.

There are two issues- 1/ does the kit work? Will hopefully find out next week... And 2/ can the musicians adjust? Will take a bit longer to fnd out that one. I have a plan with wedges and amps in the wings already, but the arrival of the B'ger stuff gives me options, and that's good.

It's been a while, but we got the P16 system onto the stage and used it in anger today. I confess at this point that I am not a Behringer fan or a basher: I like and regularly use some of their kit (ada8000, dcx2496) and very much dislike some of the rest (any of their di boxes, for starters)

In short, I am thoroughly impressed with the P16.

Good points:
Very, very easy to set up. Stagebox has 16 balanced jack inputs, 2 lightpipe inputs, and an IEC on the back- straightforward.
On the front, each analogue input channel has a fourway switch for signal level (mic/inst/4/10). Green lights for signal, red lights for clip. Six ethernet connectors on the front are for the personal mixers with power switch on the front. Unusually for behringer, the box is black so it's fairly unobtrusive on the corner of a stage.

Personal mixers are small, light, and very easy to use- gave them to some mix-naive musicians and they were working them fine within five minutes. Nice touches include:
-selecting any channel, lights or dims the red rings around the EQ knobs, to show which EQ was changed on that channel last time it was adjusted.
-proper quarter inch jacks for headphone out, and L/R stereo line out
-power over ethernet, with an included (robust!) 5m ethernet cable for each mixer
-limiter that clips smoothly rather than aggressively- again, the red ring around the limit knob flashes to show it is being used
-headphone out had no probs driving either IEMs or my senn 414s.
-one-touch setting save, recall and mixer grouping- very straightforward to use

Minor niggles:
-No built-in mic stand screw points- needs an extra mount
-channel mute function is a bit confusing with a two- step button sequence for this, same to unmute them
-the strip beneath the 16 channel buttons is small and there is no writeable surface: I will need to make some template stickers for this bit for musos to label up themselves.


For the money, this system is amazing and it was a joy to use both as a mixer and as a musician. If you are contemplating an aviom/hearback, you need to give this a whirl first.

Further update.

We filled our primary venue today so needed a relay to a secondary venue. Up till now this has been via a stereo audio mix and an xga video signal, as analogue-over-cat5, over a 50m run. Not very flexible and dependent on the main mix operatorto 'guess' a mix on aux channels.

Today, we wondered if the powerplay system might work for this... and it did the job, very well. We ran one of the p16m units on a 50m run of standard cat5 and it had no problems- power over cat5 included.

I am now revising plans for our forthcoming installation- basically with the low cost of each p16m unit, it is now cheaper and easier for me to distribute 16 channels of audio for mixing in each small venue, than it is to buy analogue-over-cat5 boxes for a stereo feed. My venue manager is very happy :-)

Well I finally managed to find some in stock so mine are on their way! I wonder if it would be possible to record a multitrack performance via the cat 5 cable into some kind of audio interface, is this possible?

Four month update.

Eight units in regular use, with two splitters and one rackmounted 'brain' backstage. Feeds are either direct channel outs, or preset subgroups (eg drums)
No failures.
Musicians all happy to use the units- some with in ears, some with a personal monitor speaker. Takes approx 30 mins to get the hang of it, on average, and a little education re : monitor etiquette for those using a monitor speaker (i.e. dont turn up your own mic too much!)
Stage noise massively reduced and my team are now free to concentrate on the FOH mix.

Very satisfied. Anyone in the e mids region considering a personal monitoring system, if you want to come and see it working, pop along to Cornerstone Church, castle Boulevard, Nottingham. On a sunday, clearly...

Anybody has experience with Behringer USB microphones C1U? I am generally happy with the quality but any advice regarding improving record quality for piano recitals and live events will be much appreciated.