Behringer Pro-800: Stocking Stuffer or Suppository?

[CyberGene]

28 minutes ago, allan_evett said:

Jim's entitled to his views here, which are largely accurate and do evoke concern. But in the end, everyone's opinion should be welcome - even ones that some might find too strongly worded

I agree fully. My suggestion for deleting posts was in response to a call for locking the thread. I'm not sure why a thread should be locked when it's not the thread itself that is at fault here. If you ask me, all topics should be allowed, even politics and religion and no posts should be deleted, or threads locked, unless of course there's hate speech and personal insults. I've created an offshoot forum to PianoWorld called PianoClack in response to the overly restrictive rules at PW and I've successfully proven that when there's complete freedom of speech and no banned topics, the net result is people quickly learn what others are concerned about and after an initial stir with heated arguments, we all resorted to a friendly and calm atmosphere where we mainly discuss pianos. I hope more forums and Internet places adopt such a policy.

 

On the topic of Behringer and what is a personal opinion. There's a slight difference between

 

"I would never support this horrible company"

 

and

 

"Please don't support this horrible company"

[stoken6]

1 hour ago, allan_evett said:

That's a slippery slope. It's not politics, religion, etc... Things related to the playing of music, gear and so forth should be allowed, provided they don't involve ad hominem attacks or promote unethical/illegal behavior. Jim's entitled to his views here, which are largely accurate and do evoke concern. But in the end, everyone's opinion should be welcome - even ones that some might find too strongly worded. 

I was struggling to find a sensitive way to articulate what brother Allan has succinctly expressed in this short paragraph. Thank you @allan_evett

 

Cheers, Mike.

[SteveCoscia]

This is an interesting thread, to say the least.  And in all due respect the opinions therein.... the marketplace will decide Behringer's fate. 

 

That being said doesn't make this thread superfluous because opinions matter and this is what forums are for.  I guess I'm just trying to state the obvious.

[Doerfler]

Quick reminder to everyone. You don't have to read the thread. If something bothers you, move on. 

 

If something requires moderation, it will be moderated. 

 

Carry on

[Anderton]

6 hours ago, CyberGene said:

If you ask me, all topics should be allowed, even politics and religion and no posts should be deleted, or threads locked, unless of course there's hate speech and personal insults. I've created an offshoot forum to PianoWorld called PianoClack in response to the overly restrictive rules at PW and I've successfully proven that when there's complete freedom of speech and no banned topics, the net result is people quickly learn what others are concerned about and after an initial stir with heated arguments, we all resorted to a friendly and calm atmosphere where we mainly discuss pianos. I hope more forums and Internet places adopt such a policy.

 

The problem would not be with the people here. There have been some "politics lite" threads over at Studio, Studio, and Stage, with lively and respectful discussions. The problem is when political people who have nothing to do with music discover threads and throw in their 2 cents. In one previous SSS lifetime, people started posting so many political threads they created an internet version of Gresham's Law. My solution was to start a separate forum for political threads, and a complete ban of same in SSS. I would estimate that 50-70% of the participation in political threads was by people who weren't musicians.

 

Creating the political forum was like building a septic tank for the real forums - all the crap went down there  The problem is you can't have a forum without moderation. I ended up doing a lot of it. I promised inconsistent and arbitrary moderation for the same reason that cops don't try to catch all speeders, they just catch a few and make an example of them. The right-wing posters accused me of being a bleeding-heart liberal because they felt I banned more right-wingers, while the left-wing posters accused me of being a heartless conservative because they felt I banned more left-wingers. However, banning was about equal, because both sides had roughly the same proportion of idiots.

[Jim Alfredson]

10 hours ago, CyberGene said:

On the topic of Behringer and what is a personal opinion. There's a slight difference between

 

"I would never support this horrible company"

 

and

 

"Please don't support this horrible company"

Well, I did say 'please'.

I don't think any less of people who buy Behringer's gear. I totally understand that budgetary concerns are driving factors in purchasing decisions. But I do think it is pertinent to bring to light the very questionable ethics of the company so that people can include that in their decisions. Despite the proliferation of logical fallacies in many of the responses to the points I brought up, it's still a fact that there are real ethical concerns. Whether those outweigh the budgetary concerns is a matter of personal choice. And that's fine. 

I won't buy their products. You can buy every single one they make. It's your money.

Regarding the Moog Minimoog reissue and the negative review on Thomann, have you actually played the reissue? I did at Sweetwater a few weeks ago. It plays like a dream. I wish I could get that Fatar keybed in my vintage Minimoog. It's super fast and responsive. That was my favorite part of it. Otherwise, the case is immaculately built and finished, the knobs are solid and feel great, and the whole thing is the very definition of quality and class. I don't know what that guy is talking about. 

Is it worth $6000? If you want the real thing, then yes. It's cheaper than the vintage ones, has more features, and sounds just as good. If that was your main axe, then hell yes it's worth it. 

[jazzpiano88]

12 hours ago, CyberGene said:

If you ask me, all topics should be allowed, even politics and religion and no posts should be deleted, or threads locked, unless of course there's hate speech and personal insults.

 

Completely disagree.  It’s why the axiom of not arguing politics or religion with family and friends exists. It tears people apart because you don’t change peoples entrenched beliefs and this isn’t Firing Line where Sam Sheepdog and Ralf Wolf are paid to destroy each other as their day job.  
 

I can see why you’re unwelcome at piano world.  I, by nature, generally take a contrarian attitude and often feel like I’m stirring up things more than I should, but try to stay on topic.  You recommending we open up this place to political and religious wars is like throwing gasoline on the forum.  Sheeesh, what a bad idea!   

 

[Konnector]

1 hour ago, JazzPiano88 said:

 

Completely disagree.  It’s why the axiom of not arguing politics or religion with family and friends exists. It tears people apart because you don’t change peoples entrenched beliefs and this isn’t Firing Line where Sam Sheepdog and Ralf Wolf are paid to destroy each other as their day job.  
 

I can see why you’re unwelcome at piano world.  I, by nature, generally take a contrarian attitude and often feel like I’m stirring up things more than I should, but try to stay on topic.  You recommending we open up this place to political and religious wars is like throwing gasoline on the forum.  Sheeesh, what a bad idea!   

 

No politics and religion here!!

That's the kiss of death to an otherwise civilized forum. I've seen it happen on other forums in the past. It NEVER ends well.

[CyberGene]

6 hours ago, Anderton said:

The problem is when political people who have nothing to do with music discover threads and throw in their 2 cents

That's why on my forum I've made such a configuration that political topics are not visible for unregistered users and are not indexed by Google and other search engines. So, only people who register for pianos would see those political topics which is already a pretty good first filter. Besides, newer users' posts in the political threads would first go through an approval to verify that those are still not users who registered on the forum to start posting about politics right away.

 

Once again, my forum is a very good demonstration of how a complete freedom of speech allowed for people to first enter some heated political debates that indicated their position, after which everybody kept calm and respected the other one and we rarely discuss politics nowadays.

 

2 hours ago, JazzPiano88 said:

I can see why you’re unwelcome at piano world.

 

Not sure where that came from, but thanks for the feedback anyway 😀 I don't think I've ever been "unwelcome" at PianoWorld because I've never discussed politics there (I'm a Bulgarian, I'm apolitical and I'm not familiar with the US politics and PW is mostly a US forum). I was banned for a month once because we started some off-topic about Soviet era cars in a Nord Piano thread 🤣 But that happened long before I created my forum. On my forum when there's off-topic I just split the posts into a separate discussion. I abandoned PW out of respect, not because I was unwelcome. And I created my forum because other people were banned for off-topic too and I wanted for them to have a place to post their response to the ban-crisis because the mods didn't even give them chance.

 

As a matter of fact, on PW I used to discuss almost predominantly hardcore digital piano topics in very detailed manner and in a calm way. Now a bit of boasting, but I created my own DIY project that turned a grand piano action into a MIDI-controller by designing my own optical sensor scanning electronics from scratch and that proved to be a very popular project on PW that inspired many other people to start working on their own similar projects and they cite me as an inspiration.

 

Here's a short video that I created for the software company I work for, that presents my project for a talent day. (Excuse my bad English ☺️😞

 

 

[dazzjazz]

Evgeni, which digital Yamaha do you have? Do you recommend it?

I regret buying my Kawai upright and need to get back to Yamaha. 

[analogika]

11 minutes ago, dazzjazz said:

Evgeni, which digital Yamaha do you have? Do you recommend it?

I regret buying my Kawai upright and need to get back to Yamaha. 

may I ask why your regret the purchase? 

[CyberGene]

22 minutes ago, dazzjazz said:

Evgeni, which digital Yamaha do you have? Do you recommend it?

It’s the Yamaha AvantGrand N1X and I absolutely recommend it! It’s the only digital piano I’ve owned that I never stopped loving. The real grand piano action is a delight to play. 

[mcgoo]

1 hour ago, CyberGene said:

It’s the Yamaha AvantGrand N1X and I absolutely recommend it! It’s the only digital piano I’ve owned that I never stopped loving. The real grand piano action is a delight to play. 

 

HEY!!! Get your own thread. You're distracting from everyone bashing or defending Behringer's business practices along with whether or not politics and religion should be allowed to enter into the discussion.. . which, of course has very little to do with the OP's thread title, but still... 🤪

[Baggypants]

On 8/19/2023 at 5:22 PM, Jim Alfredson said:

Please don't support this horrible company.

Will you also please take this stance with Amazon?

[brenner13]

Is it double damnation to buy Behringer products from Amazon? So many moral dilemmas to contend with in life.

I got some fun little cheap stuff from Temu once, but then my son informed me that this company directly profits from child labor and terrible human rights offenses. I’ve not done the research yet, but his opinion has deterred me from buying more stuff from them…for now.

 

I have great respect for everyone on MPN and some opinions here have given me reason to pause and scrutinize my new gear choices. I own a few Behringer products and find them very good tools to creating my music. A little Xenyx mixer is perfect for my live rig. Also picked up a used X32 Producer mixer a while back for a stupid good deal. It is phenomenal and really overkill for my modest little home studio. I pre-ordered a Deepmind 12 just a few days after it was announced Dec of 2016. I absolutely love this synth because they took a simple classic concept and those Midas guys were allowed to go bonkers with amazing effects and a fantastic mod-matrix. Th price point of these items were primarily the reason I was able to acquire them. The other options available in the market at the time were prohibitively out of grasp of my pocketbook.
 

I do feel a little guilty for owning these great tools though, because of some the crappy actions of the company executives that I discovered later. While Uli’s vision of providing inexpensive yet powerful musical tools to the masses seems genuine, his company’s attack on the journalist, and later the lawsuit brought against Dave Smith, both times stopped my plans to purchase other Behringer products. I really wanted the Wasp clone and the Neutron seems like a great little bit of original R&D kit, but the bad PR events have definitely influenced the reason these and other Behringer products are not in my possession today.

 

I tend to hold grudges a very long time with corporations and companies that I have personal beef with…I worked at Sears as a youngster in the late 80’s. The push to bait-and-switch products and the requirement to sell extended warranty by quota really turned my stomach and ultimately cause me to quit. I refused to shop there for decades. I did an 11-month stint at Walmart and was shocked to became aware of their terrible business practices of saturating small town markets and selling below cost to intentionally drive mom and pop stores out of business…I still refuse to shop there.

 

Amazon’s business policies are quite similar and perhaps surpass those of Walmart, with employee manipulation and their aspiration of world domination, but they are so darn convenient. My somewhat wishy-washy scruples have not completely deterred my use of their services. However, I do seek out direct purchases from some companies that I’ve done the research for on Amazon…Pig Hog, for example, gets my business direct for most of my cables. Seismic Audio is another company I’ve found to be quite a value to deal with direct. 
 

Everyone makes the choices that are allowed by their own consciences. The Pro-800, Dual Phase-Shifter, and the Pro-VS mini seem like incredible values and are very, VERY tempting to me. However, I’m trying to hold out and save up for what I really want…Osmose. Ooh! What a test of my self-control.

 

 

[Stokely]

I have a few companies I will not do business with, for various reasons.   From what I've learned of Behringer, I'm in no hurry to buy anything of theirs--but then they aren't offering anything tempting to me anyway so that's hardly some example of self sacrifice   While probably most companies are shitty in their own way, the ones that go out of their way to make it known what shits they are publicly are the ones that catch my attention.  Like posting garbage on social media.  Amazon is indeed the toughest one for me.  I don't like them but it is so very convenient and having one place to buy from vs many online is (IMO) safer than having many.   Their return policies and convenience make it an even tougher decision.

Perfect is the enemy of the good.  I can't singlehandedly fix corporate culture or climate change or whatever and go from 100% to 0% support for things I consider "bad", but if I'm 5% better about it than yesterday then that's a plus and there are always other options.  I don't give money to a certain craft store for example but their competitor is not much further down the street; so again, not a huge deal.  I guess that makes me part of "cancel culture" and if that's a label you want to slap on me, bring it on  

[AnotherScott]

On 8/22/2023 at 2:46 PM, analogika said:

Don't forget routinely programming their device firmware to recognise test suites and selectively boost performance way beyond normal specs specifically to fool those test suites

 

VW/Audi/Porsche got caught basically for that.

 

On 8/22/2023 at 3:00 PM, timwat said:

In a perfect world where morally perfect humans are 100% consistent their entire lives, yes, that statement would hold. But only in a world ruled by airtight logical tautology; and this is not that world. Complex contemporary life leads me to pick and choose my battles

 

Yup. We buy clothing and electronics that we know are being made by people living with terrible working conditions, we're lucky if at least they're not children. We eat factory-farmed food where we know the animals are not being treated well. 

 

 

On 8/22/2023 at 5:54 PM, RABid said:

When they started breaking so many programs on the iPad app store I, like many others, started looking to buy older ipads that had not been updated. Quite a market developed for those old iPads, then Apple shut that door by removing the old programs from their servers. 

 

Yup. Apple makes old devices useless by providing no way to continue to get software for them, software that used to be available to download. You often can't even re-download an app you already had but were unable to backup locally. Keeping the old apps on their servers would probably cost them nothing. Heck, they could still make money on their 30% cut on people continuing to download apps for their old devices. But apparently they would rather people turned their old devices into landfill.

 

On 8/25/2023 at 2:53 AM, Anderton said:

I guess that confirms my comment that if you go down the rabbit hole deep enough, everything sucks

 

That pretty much sums it up.

 

 

As for my own Behringer experiences, 20-ish years ago, I was regularly buying 8+ channel Behringer mixers. They all ended up breaking in short order and were either non-repairable or not worth fixing. OTOH, the B208D speakers were indestructible. My rule at the time became avoiding anything with too many knobs/sliders/jacks... just way too many possible points of failure. But their speakers were fine. I think they did get better in more recent years, though. Still I wouldn't be able to bring myself to buy another mixer from them, at least not an analog one. (I know the digitals have a lot of fans, I've never looked into them,) Adding insult to injury, many of their smaller mixers have had proprietary wall warts... if that got lost or damaged, the replacement cost could approach the cost of a whole new mixer!

 

[dazzjazz]

16 hours ago, analogika said:

may I ask why your regret the purchase? 

The sound and especially the action fight me constantly. It’s a total bummer to play, so unmusical and the opposite of inspiring. The one I tried in the shop wasn’t like that. Lesson learnt. I’m trying to figure out how I could afford a brand new Yamaha YUS3. 

[CHarrell]

8 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Yup. We buy clothing and electronics that we know are being made by people living with terrible working conditions, we're lucky if at least they're not children. We eat factory-farmed food where we know the animals are not being treated well. 

 

 

"No such thing as ethical consumption in capitalism." However, I would argue that food, clothes, and even phones take on a different dimension than bleep bloop makers, your life wouldn't be significantly impacted if you don't buy a synth from Behringer.

[Jim Alfredson]

4 hours ago, CHarrell said:

 

"No such thing as ethical consumption in capitalism." However, I would argue that food, clothes, and even phones take on a different dimension than bleep bloop makers, your life wouldn't be significantly impacted if you don't buy a synth from Behringer.

Yup. Amazon is worth 100x what Behringer is. Even if everyone that visits this forum stopped using Amazon, it wouldn't make a dent in their business. But if we all stopped by Behringer due to their business practices it would certainly affect their bottom line.

We have to pick our battles. Yes, you can go down the rabbit hole and it quickly becomes apparent that the majority of what you buy is ethically compromised. None of us set up this system nor did we choose to be a part of it. It's just the way it is and it started a long time ago. There's only so much we can do about it. Maybe boycotting Behringer is just pissing in the wind. But for me it feels better. YMMV. 

[CyberGene]

It’s exactly the scale at which Amazon is destroying businesses that should make it a much worse offender than Behringer. Double standards, anyone? 😉 
 

They both offer something good for the customers but at the price of arguably unethical business practices. However while Amazon is killing living competitors, Behringer is mostly “stealing” from companies with long expired patents and that went into bankruptcy long ago. The company that owns Moog now, I give negative sh1t about.

 

And for the record, I chose a Sequential Take 5 over the Pro-800. But I would never buy a Minimoog reissue at the current price. That’s outrageous and arrogant. And it doesn’t benefit Bob Moog and his legacy in any conceivable way. It’s just milking snobs for the benefit of some people who, again, I give zero droppings about.

 

And for the record 2, I have no issues with Amazon, and I love big online music stores even though they destroyed mom and pop stores. 

[Cabo]

Maybe someone should start a separate thread that's actually about the Pro-800 (and re-name this one)?   I'm a little curious about actual product experiences and there's nothing here.

[SteveCoscia]

3 hours ago, Cabo said:

Maybe someone should start a separate thread that's actually about the Pro-800 (and re-name this one)?   I'm a little curious about actual product experiences and there's nothing here.

 

Exactly.

[RABid]

A few days ago I made the comment that it is one thing for Behringer to copy the MiniMoog, but another to copy products currently in production like the Mother 32. Well, today I went down memory lane. Bought a brand new MiniMoog Model D around 1979. Osc 2 refused to stay in tune. Used to drive me crazy. Bought a Moog source. The thing went crazy after a few years. Would play notes and switch programs on its own. Could not sell it in this condition and could not get it repaired so I took a loss. It was 30 years later I found an article on the Internet saying the problem was cheap materials used in manufacturing. The seating for the main chip would corrode and that corrosion could not be seen if the chip was pulled and inspected. I was one of the first people to buy a MemoryMoog. That thing had a lot of problems. Keyboard Mag even had an article about it and Bob Moog, who had left the company, said it was released months too early but the new owners wanted it on the market even though it had not gone through testing. Liked to never sold my Moog Voyager. It was from a batch that had a bad card. Did anyone here ever look inside their MoogerFoogers? I had 4 of them. Inside they looked like they were being made by people who had never soldered before. Guess the cheap products were produced on the training line. After all that, why should I feel bad about opting for cheaper copies from another company?

[lsj]

you guys still can't get over this subject.  I have many synths, Moog, Korg, Roland, Yamaha, Hydrasynth, Waldorf , Sequential, Novation, and yes Behringer.  I have a Moog model D, older one, works great but I am using my Behringer Poly D more.  Does more and really sounds the same and does more.

[JoJoB3]

On 8/21/2023 at 8:49 PM, Anderton said:

People vote with their dollars. Some of the votes are "I won't support a company that conducts business in ways I find amoral." Some of the votes are "It's what I can afford." I think the latter know that most of the time, you get what you pay for.

 

 

I had a '71 Minimoog (completely restored) right next to the Model D and then a Poly D.  The difference was minutia in sound...below minutia actually.
The build and key feel of the original being the main difference. Both produced monstrous tones thru varied amplifiers.

So yes, many bought a good minimoog for $250 to $600. Behringers synth division is great for both seasoned and new players.  If they like their Behringer version they're certainly more likely to consider the $$$unobtainiums$$$.

But back in organ clone land: ALL this time and they've only come so far still.

(testament to Hammond Organ Co.)

[JoJoB3]

10 hours ago, Cabo said:

Maybe someone should start a separate thread that's actually about the Pro-800 (and re-name this one)?   I'm a little curious about actual product experiences and there's nothing here.

It sounds great, but like the orig the outboard fx and amplification you pair with it often opens up everything.
Small desktop performer may just be what folks need though.  You really need to buy and try first hand. Forum stories and a/v only go so far.
Easily returnable today too btw.

[David Emm]

Admin! Help! Help! The thread has become a tumor! It needs to be locked!

As a synth hound, I was simply interested in how the Pro-800 behaved, but even mentioning Behringer seems needlessly auto-inflammatory. Best reason to lock it: no one has a real-world report, but everyone smells a dead mouse.

 

I say "dead mouse" because I recall a tale of a dead Linn 9000 which when opened for repair, had a mouse nest and etc. all over the nice warm power supply! 🤢

[JoJoB3]

On 8/27/2023 at 10:04 AM, AnotherScott said:

 

VW/Audi/Porsche got caught basically for that.

 

 

Yup. We buy clothing and electronics that we know are being made by people living with terrible working conditions, we're lucky if at least they're not children. We eat factory-farmed food where we know the animals are not being treated well. 

 

 

 

Yup. Apple makes old devices useless by providing no way to continue to get software for them, software that used to be available to download. You often can't even re-download an app you already had but were unable to backup locally. Keeping the old apps on their servers would probably cost them nothing. Heck, they could still make money on their 30% cut on people continuing to download apps for their old devices. But apparently they would rather people turned their old devices into landfill.

 

 

That pretty much sums it up.

 

 

As for my own Behringer experiences, 20-ish years ago, I was regularly buying 8+ channel Behringer mixers. They all ended up breaking in short order and were either non-repairable or not worth fixing. OTOH, the B208D speakers were indestructible. My rule at the time became avoiding anything with too many knobs/sliders/jacks... just way too many possible points of failure. But their speakers were fine. I think they did get better in more recent years, though. Still I wouldn't be able to bring myself to buy another mixer from them, at least not an analog one. (I know the digitals have a lot of fans, I've never looked into them,) Adding insult to injury, many of their smaller mixers have had proprietary wall warts... if that got lost or damaged, the replacement cost could approach the cost of a whole new mixer!

 

Also: ya like that electric car being forced today? Wanna guess the 'conditions and overall result' overall for the lithium mining....alongside the conditions for the people doing it?

Salute btw: Exactly and Apple is THE WORST (far worse than any music instrument company).  I have PC's from Win 95 still functioning and useful still.



 

[CyberGene]

I’m not sure why it has to be locked, again. The last few posts contain very valuable opinions about comparisons between a Minimoog and Behringer clones, as well as the durability of actual Moog synths. 
 

If anything, the Pro-800 stuff can be separated in another thread. Why lock?!