Behringer's at it Again

[Markay]

I am no expert on this type of thing, but I struggle that any company has a setup whereby sensitive design information such as product concepts has a system linkage which could allow this information to be inadvertently published to the web.

At best I could accept that someone was tasked to mock up a web page with potential future product releases and somehow it got published by mistake.

 

My bet though is intentional information release to see how the market reacts.

 

Well I have a little knowledge of web site management and despite the Machiavellian machinations offered up in this thread to explain the 'leak' it could also simply be the result of someone transferring a document in error into a folder on their public webserver, rather than their internal intranet server.

 

It would not be the first time that has happened.

[Synthoid]

Joe did it.

 

 

[Markay]

Nah Joe's a pro. If Joe did it the site would be down, and the Behringer II site would be up and running with full details of the Model D.

[GRollins]

That makes sense, but lets not forget you were the one who first started speculating about the company, it's outsourced manufacturing, etc. My, and other responses were pointing out the facts, available to anyone with access to Google.

 

Sadly, Google won't cough up company secrets as to what's going on with the Model D...whose ship date has slipped yet again. If Behringer is outsourcing--or even just considering it--they're going to be very, very circumspect about it. If there are production bottlenecks within the company, they might, but probably won't make such information public--it'll just be something we deduce because the units are shipping, but only in small quantities. If there are quality control problems, they definitely won't make that public knowledge under any circumstances.

 

So...it's not going to be quite so simple as looking up the company's street address or number of employees or whatever.

 

Grey

[Synthaholic]

1 - I have heard for years that Behringer would use parts that didn't meet the QC of other companies.

 

2 - I had a Behringer mixer for 20 years that didn't give me a speck of trouble.

 

[GRollins]

Back when I was in high end stereo there was a company that made a pretty nifty tube preamp. I and another fellow got curious as to what made it tick, so we popped the can.

 

Interesting.

 

There was a resistor in the power supply that was so hot it was cooking the paint off the inside of the sheet metal. Turned out it was running at something like 95% of its rated power dissipation. In spec? Technically, yes. Practically speaking, no. I'd never run a resistor at more than, say, 60% of its rated heat dissipation--preferably less than 50%.

 

(Note that MILSPEC parts are overrated by 100%. A MILSPEC resistor rated at 1/2W is actually a 1W resistor in commercial ratings. Built-in safety factor. Nifty.)

 

The company in question is no longer in business. They didn't last long, even though their equipment was sexy looking, sounded good, and reviewed well.

 

In another case, there was an established company that released an entry level power amplifier. The problem this time was that the main filter capacitor in the power supply was running about 5V over its rated voltage. In this case, you can actually get away with running an electrolytic at 80-90% of its rated voltage--in fact the part likes it--but go over that rating and you're courting disaster. That company, too, is out of business, although their other products were more conservatively designed. Never did understand why they did what they did with that amp. The guy who ran the company was a smart cookie; he knew better. Maybe the bean counters forced the matter, seeking a cheaper part.

 

No, I'm not suggesting that Behringer is using parts too close to their ratings--or gawd forbid--above their ratings. I have no information. I am simply saying that such things have happened in the past and are objectively verifiable.

 

Details on request, but otherwise I'll let the dead rest in peace.

 

Grey

[Song80s]

1 - I have heard for years that Behringer would use parts that didn't meet the QC of other companies.

 

2 - I had a Behringer mixer for 20 years that didn't give me a speck of trouble.

 

 

Sounds like Internet chatter. I prefer facts vs someone's random theories.

 

I had perfect success with a Behringer mixer and their monitors. Excellent value.

But that was 15 yrs ago and a small bubble of anecdotal experience.

 

The problem is that current hard data is not available on defect rates. a Behringer employee close to QC likely has the defect rate and knows about failed components.

 

Thus, I would keep a sharp view on any new product for defects if anyone is concerned about a particular co and their style of operation.

[GRollins]

As a rule of thumb, look to the power supply first. Signal level resistors are almost never the problem, barring (unplanned) oscillation. Capacitors...sometimes. Semiconductors...yeah, you sometimes see foolish decisions there. Tubes, interestingly enough, are forgiving. Aside from power tubes being run too hard, you can get away with murder if you're using tubes.

 

But power supplies...oh, Gussie! The things you see in power supplies will make you lose faith in humanity. As far as circuits go, that's where the lion's share of the money is and that tempts people to cut corners.

 

Excepting transformers and inductors, it's not unusual for the chassis to be the most expensive part of a piece of equipment. (Yes, yes, yes, I'm in keyboard land now and someone will want to point out that keybeds are expensive...but the Model D [or mixers, or...] doesn't have keys, so that's not relevant at this juncture.) That said, you hope not to see chassis failure--it's a little obvious.

 

Grey

[Markyboard]

No, I'm not suggesting that Behringer is using parts too close to their ratings--or gawd forbid--above their ratings. I have no information. I am simply saying that such things have happened in the past and are objectively verifiable.

 

Details on request, but otherwise I'll let the dead rest in peace.

 

Grey

 

Interesting. Are all these cloned classics including the Minimoog designed with ample margin today? Were the design guidelines different 30-40 years ago? I wonder if these circuits being copied are re-analyzed. Certainly heat dissipation is different with smaller enclosures. I assume they're taking this into account.

[Song80s]

As a rule of thumb, look to the power supply first. S

 

But power supplies...oh, Gussie! The things you see in power supplies will make you lose faith in humanity. As far as circuits go, that's where the lion's share of the money is and that tempts people to cut corners.

 

 

Grey

 

I have seen more than a few posts on another keyboard forum where the internal power supply was suspect. And swapping out this power supply was no DIY project, either.

 

Even though some will always try to. After all, everything seems to be like my uncle's 15 yr old PC if you read all the posts

[The Real MC]

But power supplies...oh, Gussie! The things you see in power supplies will make you lose faith in humanity. As far as circuits go, that's where the lion's share of the money is and that tempts people to cut corners.

 

Unfortunately true. Besides cutting corners, there are bad power supply designs out there.

 

Excepting transformers and inductors, it's not unusual for the chassis to be the most expensive part of a piece of equipment.

 

What really grinds my gears are polymer chassis. Yes they are lighter as well as cheaper. But they are not rugged enough for gigging and as polymer ages, it is easier to fracture.

 

Don't be fooled by wood chassis either. The base of my Hammond XLK3 lower manual is constructed of FLIMSY 1/4" chipboard which is just ASKING to be busted even with simple handling. When I ordered the case for the XK3c+XLK3 dual manual clonewheel, I specified the base of the lid to be the permanent base for the XLK3 to make it much more rugged.

[GRollins]

Power dissipation in a resistor is actually a pretty simple matter--it's mostly a question of surface area, choice of materials to a lesser degree. The advent of surface-mounted-devices (SMD) means that the resistors are (or can be) tiny. Damned tiny. Yes, you can accurately conclude that the power dissipation capability goes down as you shrink the part.

 

The video I saw where the guy broke down a Behringer Model D clearly showed a butt-load of SMD parts. That's not necessarily a problem, just an observation.

 

Unless and until I get my hands on a Behringer D, I'm not in a position to say whether it's been competently ported over from the original design. I'm sure we'd all like to think so. I believe the original specified 1/2W resistors, minimum, in all positions. (I've got the schematics and can double check this--maybe will do so later.) That's a pretty comfortable spec. Those pinhead-sized SMD resistors don't have that sort of margin but, again, depending on where they are in the circuit, that may not be a problem.

 

I'm still tempted to build a Model D "the Grey way." It's not all that whacky of a circuit. The problem is that the parts cost alone would approach (possibly exceed) the retail price of the Behringer unit. Well, that and the fact that I still haven't finished the master bath, although the mahogany desk top is nearly ready. Other projects are stacked up behind those, so it's a matter of priorities. I'd muchly prefer to do electronics than construction, but life doesn't care about my preferences.

 

Bummer.

 

Grey

[The Real MC]

No, I'm not suggesting that Behringer is using parts too close to their ratings--or gawd forbid--above their ratings. I have no information. I am simply saying that such things have happened in the past and are objectively verifiable.

 

Details on request, but otherwise I'll let the dead rest in peace.

 

Grey

 

Interesting. Are all these cloned classics including the Minimoog designed with ample margin today? Were the design guidelines different 30-40 years ago? I wonder if these circuits being copied are re-analyzed. Certainly heat dissipation is different with smaller enclosures. I assume they're taking this into account.

 

Design guidelines did not change. The people who designed those inferior power supplies were not qualified in their field.

 

Are copied circuits being re-analyzed? Afraid not. When I saw the schematics for the Behringer D, they not only copied the schematic they also copied the design error that means VCO2 will always drift out of tune. I'm not revealing that design error as Behringer will have to figure it out themselves. I don't assist chronic plagiarizers.

[GRollins]

Design guidelines did not change. The people who designed those inferior power supplies were not qualified in their field.

 

In the case of the preamp I mentioned, those guys were definitely not 1st level players. I and the other guy called them about the resistor and got yelled at by one of the two (I think it was two partners in the firm, it's been a while) designers. He screamed that it was within spec, that he knew what he was doing...yap, yap, yap. We told him we weren't comfortable selling something that was burning the paint off the sheet metal. At that point, he really went nuts. Methinks he was a bit defensive. We never ordered another piece from them.

 

As for the power supply cap...I suspect the story there is more complicated. The designer (in this case, some of you might recognize his name, or at least the names of some of the companies he was associated with over the years) was competent. I suspect, but do not know for certain that someone else changed the spec for the part to something cheaper. An alternate possibility is that the design for that circuit was foisted off on some junior tech who wasn't properly supervised. Being an entry level amp, it might not have been interesting to the big guy.

 

At this point, it's all ancient history. I haven't been on the retail end of hi-fi in ages. I still like designing and looking at circuits, though I confess that I'm getting a bit rusty, not having kept at it as much over the last ten or fifteen years or so.

 

Grey

[RichieP_MechE]

Uli Behringer posted a more detailed explanation of what happened over on Gearslutz - clonk

 

 

[burningbusch]

IEven if the sound is thin like the D12 the prices are hard to beat.

But I can guarantee the CAT wont even be close.

ARP2600 should be okay sine the Moog is a solid 3 Osc design.

Dual Osc from Behringer just aint Fat enough.

Maybe it will be better than D12.

V

Cant go wrong for softsynths prices though.

 

I know what you mean. On the DM12, if you set up the two oscillators unison detuned saw, it just doesn't sound like two fat detuned saws. Oh wait, the second osc doesn't have saw. If you want two saws, you'll need to switch to six voice mode.

 

I don't know, but if they follow the original designs and use same components to the degree possible, my guess is it will sound pretty close to the original. And as I haven't found the current crop of VC3 soft emulations to my liking, I holding out hope that an affordable hardware version is available some time in the future.

 

Busch.

[GRollins]

Uli Behringer posted a more detailed explanation of what happened over on Gearslutz - clonk

 

 

Thanks.

 

Grey

[Doerfler]

Uli Behringer posted a more detailed explanation of what happened over on Gearslutz - clonk

 

 

well worth reading, thanks for the link

[GRollins]

Just for the record...how shall I say this...ERP is...uh...kind of a hoax/fad whose day has already come and gone. We went down that path where I used to work and discovered--like so many others--that it doesn't work as advertised. Some very large organizations have sunk literally hundreds of millions into the scheme and ended up with nothing. Zilch. Major lawsuits result. My former place of employment has yet to realize (in spite of time/money/effort invested and being years behind target) that it's not gonna happen. Too many egos on the line. Too much face at risk of being lost. Too many arrogant people fearing loss of their careers. They're at the stage where they figure that if they throw just one or two more Project Managers at the problem it will suddenly come together.

 

Good luck with that, assholes. After destroying years of work and hundreds (yes, hundreds) of careers, they're left holding a broken system that everyone hates and doesn't work. Yet they keep getting raises and promotions. I hope they rot in hell.

 

Bitter?

 

Yep.

 

It's a mess. I got out.

 

Grey

[Doerfler]

maybe take it off line? BB's thread has been derailed quite a bit already.

[GRollins]

Actually, it's quite linear:

 

1) burningbusch starts a thread that points out that Behringer has new models coming out

 

2) Behringer says, wait, not so fast, it was a computer error, we may or may not mean it

 

3) As part of the kinda sorta mea culpa, Uli Behringer himself mentions that he's got an ERP system

 

4) Grey points out that ERP systems aren't all they're cracked up to be--implied, though not stated openly, is the idea that ERP problems are behind the data leak

 

Simple.

 

Grey

[Synthaholic]

1 - I have heard for years that Behringer would use parts that didn't meet the QC of other companies.

 

2 - I had a Behringer mixer for 20 years that didn't give me a speck of trouble.

 

 

Sounds like Internet chatter. I prefer facts vs someone's random theories.

 

It was from salesmen at stores, who I've dealt with for years, and from repair techs, one of whom I've been using since the early 1980s. But whatever.

[WesG]

I wonder how these people got access to the QA data for those parts. It's not like it's printed on them........

[piano39]

Just for the record...how shall I say this...ERP is...uh...kind of a hoax/fad whose day has already come and gone. We went down that path where I used to work and discovered--like so many others--that it doesn't work as advertised. Some very large organizations have sunk literally hundreds of millions into the scheme and ended up with nothing. Zilch. Major lawsuits result. My former place of employment has yet to realize (in spite of time/money/effort invested and being years behind target) that it's not gonna happen. Too many egos on the line. Too much face at risk of being lost. Too many arrogant people fearing loss of their careers. They're at the stage where they figure that if they throw just one or two more Project Managers at the problem it will suddenly come together.

 

Good luck with that, assholes. After destroying years of work and hundreds (yes, hundreds) of careers, they're left holding a broken system that everyone hates and doesn't work. Yet they keep getting raises and promotions. I hope they rot in hell.

 

Bitter?

 

Yep.

 

It's a mess. I got out.

 

Grey

So, in my day job, I am a manufacturing executive at a small manufacturer. We have manufacturing operations in U.S. and China. I helped to set up the China operations. One thing that Uli may or may not have mentioned---Sometimes the Chinese government forces foreign owned companies to move factories. this would be to fit with some grand strategic plan that they have. It is happening to my company now, and has happened to several of my customers.

 

As far as ERP systems go....it is definitely not a hoax or a fad. ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is software that covers every aspect of the business- from initial estimating of a project through manufacturing and shipping. It also includes all aspects of sourcing- purchasing, inventory control, etc. ERP is integrated- all of these systems talk to each other and use the same database. Prior to ERP systems, companies had separate systems for each aspect of their operation.

 

Nowadays, only the very smallest companies do not have an ERP system. It would be impossible to compete without one. That being said, successful implementation of these things is a mess. Companies have to spend millions of dollars for planning and training to be successful. I know several people, such as Grollins, that have quit jobs over ERP. With poor implementation, it could make previously simple tasks very difficult to do.

 

I do not know if the cause of Behringer's info leak was really the ERP system. I can bet that they are pretty successful at ERP, though. Otherwise, they wouldn't be as successful as they are.

[dboomer]

1 - I have heard for years that Behringer would use parts that didn't meet the QC of other companies.

 

That might look like a problem on the face of it, but lots of companies do the same. What might not be satisfactory in one application might be more than adequate for another application.

[Rod S]

Just for the record...how shall I say this...ERP is...uh...kind of a hoax/fad whose day has already come and gone. We went down that path where I used to work and discovered--like so many others--that it doesn't work as advertised. Some very large organizations have sunk literally hundreds of millions into the scheme and ended up with nothing. Zilch. Major lawsuits result. My former place of employment has yet to realize (in spite of time/money/effort invested and being years behind target) that it's not gonna happen. Too many egos on the line. Too much face at risk of being lost. Too many arrogant people fearing loss of their careers. They're at the stage where they figure that if they throw just one or two more Project Managers at the problem it will suddenly come together.Grey

As far as ERP systems go....it is definitely not a hoax or a fad. ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is software that covers every aspect of the business- from initial estimating of a project through manufacturing and shipping. It also includes all aspects of sourcing- purchasing, inventory control, etc. ERP is integrated- all of these systems talk to each other and use the same database. Prior to ERP systems, companies had separate systems for each aspect of their operation.

 

Nowadays, only the very smallest companies do not have an ERP system. It would be impossible to compete without one. That being said, successful implementation of these things is a mess. Companies have to spend millions of dollars for planning and training to be successful. I know several people, such as Grollins, that have quit jobs over ERP. With poor implementation, it could make previously simple tasks very difficult to do.

I've participated in several SAP major upgrades, pain in the ass, don't like the company, I just deal with it. Have a family member who worked in SAP and confirmed the failure rate of implementations is shockingly high. My experience with them has been frustrating and annoying, but so it is a lot of other companies.

 

My day job is engineering project management leadership. So lots of SAP interface to control project budgets, place purchases orders, keep track of fixed assets in an ERP and so forth. Love and hate relationship with SAP, but it is what it is. As piano39 said, certainly not a fad.

 

Don't like Microsoft either, but our team launched last year a SharePoint system that lets the project leaders see project status from their cell phones. Yeah, we managed to get SAP and Microsoft to talk to each other.

 

HOWEVER, I fail to see how this glitch is an ERP issue. Either idiotic IT related issue (I'm seen my share) or on purpose.

[WesG]

My spidey senses tell me it was gross incompetence at the IT level, and blamed on ERP to disguise that fact.

[Markyboard]

Joe did it.

[Tusker]

My spidey senses tell me it was gross incompetence at the IT level, and blamed on ERP to disguise that fact.

 

Agree with this and also with Rod.

 

It would take a laughably over-engineered SAP implementation to start updating customer facing websites willy nilly.

[GRollins]

My spidey senses tell me it was gross incompetence at the IT level, and blamed on ERP to disguise that fact.

 

Both.

 

Note that my speculation that ERP might be part of Behringer's woes is just that--speculation. Even if ERP played a role, it's not as though the software suddenly decided on its own to publish their notes. It's not an AI system. There will be a human element (if the release was intentional for business purposes, then computers are absolved of guilt in any capacity), but ERP could easily play a contributing role in an accidental release.

 

Something to be aware of: What Uli and others are calling ERP also travels under other names. This confuses the issue sometimes.

 

As an example of a failure here locally: Blue Cross Blue Shield (not where I worked--a separate disaster) was seduced by the Dark Side. Note that BCBS is not some tiny, fly-by-night operation. They're Fortune 500 level heavies. They have resources and experience. They tore out a fully functional mainframe system and replaced it with an ERP system. Well, they tried to. To make a long story short, they wasted untold millions trying to get it to work before ripping that out and replacing the useless ERP attempt with another mainframe system.

 

Innumerable universities have tried. All the ones I heard of were abject failures.

 

Many, many lawsuits have been filed over this nonsense. The typical pattern is that a vendor will send people in who perform a carefully orchestrated dog & pony show. Looks sexy. Company buys in. Money (lots, but not too bad...yet...) is put on the line. A horde of consultants and developers and advisors and other job titles galore descend on the company. Okay, you need this module and that module and the other thing. They start installing. The first module or two work. After the fourth or fifth module goes in, stuff stops working. Schedules start slipping. Mind you--no one is upset yet. "These things happen." Vendor says, "Oh, looks like you need this other module that's not in the contract to make this work." Needless to say, this is billable. More money flows. That module works...haltingly. Right about this point, the Accounting Department discovers that their module isn't doing something critical. Project Planning starts wondering why they can't get to their files from two years ago. "Oh, you changed file systems two years ago. You'll need another module for that." More money. More delays. It's installed. Wait...the old-file-system-module is having an unexpected conflict with the Accounting Department (who, if you will recall, was already having problems anyway) because they didn't change their file system two years ago. They've been steady on the same system for the last twenty years, but the file change module assumed that they changed over two years ago, which they didn't, but...

 

Did I mention that Accounting is where paychecks come from?

 

Okay...now shit's getting real.

 

The high muckety-mucks who approved the fiasco start pointing fingers at each other. The vendor shrugs and says you need two new modules to fix all of this...which at this point amounts to extortion, because the old system (which worked perfectly) is long gone or has been in a slow phase-out mode and is so degraded that it can no longer be made to work. It's forward or perish.

 

Which amounts to perish or perish.

 

The kind of idiots who fall for this crap are, almost by definition, not true IT people. They're bureaucrats/politicians/personal-friend-appointees and don't really understand the deeper realities of computing. Computer people talk to each other and read stuff that tells them that this is perilous territory, tread lightly. Idiots fall for the catch phrases and sales talk and Power Point presentations. So, it's nearly inevitable that it's both the so-called leaders and the software.

 

If you stick with a tiny subset--just one or two modules--you stand a chance. Maybe. The more modules you add (inevitable in any mid-to-large scale organization), the more the generic assumptions that the vendor made when they wrote the code will cause problems. It's exponential. Beware: Do not believe them when they tell you how they will "customize" the modules for your installation. That's the black hole down which the money flows. The generic modules look good in Power Point, but won't do what you need. The customizations break their code.

 

Look before you leap.

 

I'm not naming vendor names here for a reason. Read between the lines.

 

Grey