OT: Trust in Behringer gear?

EB5AGV

Hi all,

A week ago I had my fourth gig with my pop/rock band. It was in an small venue with a pretty small place to setup a six people band (singer, drums, guitar, bass, sax and keys). But, well, we managed to setup and, after some problems with the venue audio system, we went for individual amps for guitar, bass and keys, acoustic for drums and sax and venue PA for our singer.

So I used my Behringer K1800FX amplifier for that. I know it is not an stellar amp but it was powerful enough and should have done the trick… if it had kept working more than five and a half songs (of the planned 17) 😆. When we were in the middle of a rock song, it just died. Without any previous hint of failure. Not it was being abused, just perhaps running at 60% of power.

I had to fastly find a way out of my situation and replaced it with my monitor, a Behringer B205D which flawlessly worked to the end of the gig. That one was at about 80-90% but kept doing its job.

I am in the process of fixing the K1800FX (you can see that in my website at: EB5AGV Behringer K1800FX repair ) but I wonder if I could trust this has been just an isolated fault or it is best for me to get another amplifier and never ever trust that brand again.

I should say this amplifier was bought used a couple months ago, with low hours on it and we'll cared for, but it was manufactured in 2009.

Also, if you can share with me your keys amplifier setup, it would also help me to decide.

Thanks!

Jose

HZPiano

EB5AGV I wonder if I could trust this has been just an isolated fault or it is best for me to get another amplifier and never ever trust that brand again.

Hi!

I have no experience with their amps.

Considering the brand, they have many products and the quality from product type to product type varies. So you cannot just draw the line for the Behringer brand as a whole. Generally speaking, they are a budget brand.

My limited experiences with Behringer are:

I have two passive DI boxes which do a fine job with good build quality and features;
My first audio interface was a six channel Uphoria which punches above its weight in sound quality and has a nice build quality too, and comes with well-working drivers. I switched to a PreSonus one because I wanted a separate power supply, stronger output signal and even nicer DACs;
I have a Behringer mixer which is great for experimentation (which is what I got it for) but has a bad signal to noise ratio and introduces hiss itself. Overall I'd rate this one so-so.

Speaking overall, Behringer is a budget brand with a mixed bag in quality, and some value for money gems in their portfolio.

Cheers and happy gigging,

n-player

EB5AGV The board is crusty as.
Looking at the heatsink, there seems to be some liquid ingress (see photo just above your nifty workbench). That said, I would expect the heatsink tell-tales to be on the other side...maybe. What do you think?

Behringer is not using the best parts or assembly so 15 years on, I suppose these fail at accelerated rates. Behringer can be good value new for some items IME.

When gigging, I suppose redundancy is important.

Premium gear isn't a fantastic solution as there is the risk of theft. In Spain, somebody stole the foglights off my Ibiza; I've seen a lot of theft but that was a surprise

SouthPark

EB5AGV Last year, my split system aircon did exactly that. Operating …. and just abruptly powered off. No power at all.

Called an aircon repair place because I didn't want to do the hard yards to fix it myself. But after they came around and said it can't be fixed and would need total aircon system replacement, I just said that I'll try to fix it myself.

Replaced a resistive fuse plus power transistor … as these were destroyed … open fuse, shorts between terminals of power transistor. Aircon came back to life … for an hour. Then same thing happened. Eventually pulled out the two big power supply electrolytic caps. Those two caps look pristine. Measured their capacitance for each one ….. way out of specs. Put in new ones with the required specs.

Saved a heap of trouble after the fix … as the aircon people reckon that new systems require different piping etc. And that didn't sound fantastic … the thought of wall work etc.

As they say in some movies … the cliche … systems eventually pack up permanently … but not today (or that day - about a year ago) hehe.

HZPiano

PS As you have experience in such repairs and with electronics, I'd assume you'll be able to assess if the fault is likely to be an incident or whether the unit's guts look poor enough such that they seem rather gremlin prone?

In any case,

Cheers and a happy repair,

EB5AGV

HZPiano Well, the amplifier construction is not bad looking, if Chinese all around. As I have checked basically all components and have replaced (or will do) everything which was at fault, and plan to do some stress-test once fixed, it would seem like I can still get some more years from the unit.

I have also some other Behringer gear: a couple mixers, some audio accessories (DI boxes, hum destroyers, mics), the small B205D (two units, one fixed at the rehearsal place, one to be used portable). Everything else, so far, has behaved. This is my first old and used Behringer.

So, yes, you can't blame the whole brand for this case!

Jose

EB5AGV

n-player I have inspected the heathsink and those darker spots (well seen!) may be well there since the manufacturing process. There is no sign of nothing suspicious at the other side of the heathsink. And it would be really hard for a liquid to get into the Behringer box, it is pretty well sealed (I am talking of some light spill over it, not flooding the amp). And, on the PCB, there are not liquid marks I can see.

So, what caused the damage, perhaps that tiny metal part?. Or just did the transistors decide life was not worth it and commited suicide? 🤯

Jose

HZPiano

EB5AGV transistors decide life was not worth it and commited suicide?

Was your gig that bad 😁?

Sorry, just couldn't help it… 😇

Cheers and happy amp recovery,

EB5AGV

HZPiano Yes, you nailed it! 🤣 (no, I can't really say this, it was a great show, despite lousy keys 😜)

SouthPark

My mdx1200 still works nicely. Had it since jurassic park. And a relatively new MIC200 works just fine. 'The Ear' we trust. And Behringer fans knows what that means.

HZPiano

EB5AGV it was a great show

Great to hear that, congratulations!