Soundtracs Topaz 14 4 Manual Download
Just doing my bit to get this thread into a three figure page count As someone who has, and does use Behringer gear, I think it's fair to say that they have come up with some good products. The DDX3216 is a joy of intuitive software/ui design.
I loved using mine. However they have blatantly ripped off designs from other companies.
They have been taken to court for it, and they have lost. But they continued to do this - taking the bet that a lot of relatively small companies can't afford to risk going to court, which is expensive. I think when Behringer ripped of the Mackie 8 bus, 'designing' the Eurodesk MX8000, Mackie were doing pretty badly, so B took a risk and ripped them off. Still that's life in the corporate world. They're always taking each other to court for stealing intellectual property etc.
I've done a bunch of recording and mixing for reggae bands (played in some myself). Soundtracs Topaz, Midas Venice 240, Mackie 24/8, A&H GS3, TAC Scorpion. Understanding whats going on and developing your manual skill is far more important. For value I think it's hard to beat the a&H 14:4:2.
What annoys me more about Behringer gear is just how badly a lot of it is put together. Cheap components that don't last, sometimes components are completely missed by the flow soldering, big desks are not rigid enough and flex causing everything to break. I loved working with my DDX3216, and in the digital domain it sounded great. Sadly the analogue bits were rubbish, and deteriorated badly after a couple of years (cheap capacitors). More significantly, after it had broken once, I was never confident that it was going to carry on working and be reliable.
It's really annoying because I'd gladly pay more for a good quality DDX3216 because I think it's by far the most user friendly compact digital mixer. I now have a Tascam and it's terrible. Sounds great, but truly baffling to operate.
Some of their gear is very usable and good value. But a lot of it isn't good value, it's false economy.
It's important to know the difference. It isn't just Behringer gear that's cheap, big name brands are making good kit at the budget end. Given the choice of a £300 Behringer desk, or a £500 soundcraft desk, the quality difference is far great than the £200 would suggest and I would argue that often it's worth it. Poster Posts: 14 Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2002 1:00 am. Tomas wrote: I was impressed by the circuit design of the. Pure genius in simplicity and flexibility.
The block diagram is in the spec sheet on B's web site. Then I came across Apparently a design from 1983 (according to the engineering note that carries an unbelivably similar block diagram). Siemens ncdr 1100 user manual. Yes, but I've got a pair of the Rane boxes that I got off ebay for less than half the price I'd pay for a new B splitter/mixer, and, considering the build quality of the Rane gear (which is always built like a tank) in comparison to the build quality of ANYTHING I've seen that B make, I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts those Rane boxes will be functioning beautifully LONG after the B box has been thrown in the trash.
I've got a bunch of old Rane gear that works beautifully, and I've also got a few that need fixing (a couple of bad pots is about the extent of it), and the Rane gear is easy to fix (and get parts for), and perhaps less expensive to fix as well. I had a little UB802 mixer and, for the cost of the 10 plus bad pots (and I'm talking just buying the parts from Behringer here, not including labour cost!) I had on that thing after a year of *very* light use, sitting on my desktop and not being moved around, it was cheaper to just throw the thing in the bin and get a new mixer. In the end, for a few bucks more than I'd have paid to get a new UB802, I bought a little Soundtracs Topaz 12-4 mixer second hand (also something that is worth fixing if something goes bad). I now have a much more versatile and usable mixer, and it will also take a lot bit more abuse than the B will.
That said, I don't really use the pres much on the Soundtracs (not the greatest, though I suspect the pres are better on the larger Soundtracs mixers), but at least the EQ, etc. Is usable on the Soundtracs. The EQ on the Behringer stuff is flippin' nasty and unusable (worse than the Mackie EQ), and the pres on the B mixers (including the 8000 and 9000 mixers) are OK, but not great. I find them a bit thin and metallic.