[Phildo]

Eeyore wrote:

Jason Lavoie wrote:

I'm not at all surprised.. I've installed about 40 of them, and at
least 1/4 of those failed between the 1.5-2.5 year mark.
looking back, your solution may well be the most appropriate, as my
units were 99% fixed installs and didn't suffer any vibration. the
next culprit is heat.

anyway. they are what they are.. just because they're a really cool
tool, and top of the behringer pile, they're still as disposable as
every other piece of behringer gear.

George Gleason and Phildo REALLY aren't going to like hearing you say
things like that !

Was probably installer error, lack of proper ventilation etc.

Phildo

[Scott Dorsey]

Ron(UK) wrote:
What I mean is, most users would not expect to have to replace an
expensive big name item of gear after a few years, yet something of the
standard of Behringer - which could pay for itself in maybe one gig -
may be expected to last a corespondingly shorter length of time.
Obviously the complexity of the item pays a large part in the equation,
as does the quality of components, build etc.

See, in the PC world, people expect to replace their computer every three
or five years. That's an expected normal cost of doing business, and the
manufacturers don't build the hardware to be rugged because there's no need
for it to last longer than that. The life cycle of the technology is so
short that people replace the stuff before it breaks anyway.

What you are seeing today is what happens when this attitude leaks out and
starts pouring into the pro audio industry. I personally find it shameful.

A lot of the gear at 'my' venue is over 11 years old and still working.
EV P3000 amps, an A&H GL2000, some EV Deltamax, SX300s etc. some of it
has now been replaced as a matter of course but most of the original
install gear still works fine.

My console is more than thirty years old and it works and sounds just fine.
Likewise the Ampex, which is paid for. On the other hand, I also expect to
spend a considerable amount of time and money on maintenance and upkeep,
which the people on the three-year cycle don't budget for.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

Ron Capik wrote:

Damn, I don't seem to be having good luck this month.

I guess you're stuck returning it to the same dealer you bought it from
unless they have a friendly refund policy (I've found that most do).
Stories of Guitar Center and Musician's Friend re-selling returns as
long as they light up aside, your dealer may have received a shipment
from a production run which had a whole batch of defective parts, so all
the units they have in stock from a given batch may have the same fault.


--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[hank alrich]

George's ProSound Company wrote:

I don't see why I have about 40 of the deq's in service for years now and
had one fail, which was replaced overnight by Behringer

Unfortunately that has not been my own experience with DEQ2496's. It'll
be interesting to see if any of the units that have not yet failed make
the five year mark.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[hank alrich]

Phildo wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Jason Lavoie wrote:

I'm not at all surprised.. I've installed about 40 of them, and at
least 1/4 of those failed between the 1.5-2.5 year mark.
looking back, your solution may well be the most appropriate, as my
units were 99% fixed installs and didn't suffer any vibration. the
next culprit is heat.

anyway. they are what they are.. just because they're a really cool
tool, and top of the behringer pile, they're still as disposable as
every other piece of behringer gear.

George Gleason and Phildo REALLY aren't going to like hearing you say
things like that !

Was probably installer error, lack of proper ventilation etc.

Easy to say and obviously unsubstantiated.

Counting my own and what I've installed here and in Austin, I've had 3
of 7 DEQ2496's go down, in three years. The first one was under
warranty. I'll becontacting their tech support to see if there is
anything we can do about the two unusable ones I now have on hand. One
no longer accepts analog input. I opened it and exercised connectors,
but nada. The other one no longer has a noise floor; it offers a noise
ceiling.

The are remarkably powerful for what they cost, but I don't take well to
throwaway concepts. None of this is attributable to lack of ventilation,
etc. This is under very easy physical working conditions.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[George's ProSound Company]

"hank alrich" wrote in message
...
George's ProSound Company wrote:

I don't see why I have about 40 of the deq's in service for years now and
had one fail, which was replaced overnight by Behringer

Unfortunately that has not been my own experience with DEQ2496's. It'll
be interesting to see if any of the units that have not yet failed make
the five year mark.

I havehad 100% failure rate with my yamaha Ls9/32
doesnt turn me off to the product, just need to keep on top of it.
and I could buy 30 deq 2496's for the cost of a ls9

**** breaks, it's just the way it is
George

[hank alrich]

George's ProSound Company wrote:

"hank alrich" wrote in message
...
George's ProSound Company wrote:

I don't see why I have about 40 of the deq's in service for years now and
had one fail, which was replaced overnight by Behringer

Unfortunately that has not been my own experience with DEQ2496's. It'll
be interesting to see if any of the units that have not yet failed make
the five year mark.

I havehad 100% failure rate with my yamaha Ls9/32
doesnt turn me off to the product, just need to keep on top of it.
and I could buy 30 deq 2496's for the cost of a ls9

**** breaks, it's just the way it is
George

My Drawmer DL241 cost twice the DEQ2496 and has now lasted over five
times as long. The AKG BX20 has twice the run of the Drawmer. I have
lots of stuff that has been working for decades. The only gear from
which I have significant failures in a single mfgr's partuclar model is
the Behringer DEQ2496. That's a fact of my own data, and needn't affect
yours. But for me the stuff I paid more for has turned out to be less
expensive over the long run.

Remember that I was an enthusiastic convert to and appreciator of the
performance of the DEQ2496, and of the tech support I received from Jim
Savery and crew. I said early-on that I'd have to wait and see how
they've held up. The answer is "not so admirably".

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[George's ProSound Company]

"hank alrich" wrote in message
...
George's ProSound Company wrote:

"hank alrich" wrote in message
...
George's ProSound Company wrote:

I don't see why I have about 40 of the deq's in service for years now
and
had one fail, which was replaced overnight by Behringer

Unfortunately that has not been my own experience with DEQ2496's. It'll
be interesting to see if any of the units that have not yet failed make
the five year mark.

I havehad 100% failure rate with my Yamaha Ls9/32
doesn't turn me off to the product, just need to keep on top of it.
and I could buy 30 deq 2496's for the cost of a ls9

**** breaks, it's just the way it is
George

My Drawmer DL241 cost twice the DEQ2496 and has now lasted over five
times as long. The AKG BX20 has twice the run of the Drawmer. I have
lots of stuff that has been working for decades. The only gear from
which I have significant failures in a single mfgr's particular model is
the Behringer DEQ2496. That's a fact of my own data, and needn't affect
yours. But for me the stuff I paid more for has turned out to be less
expensive over the long run.

I wish Icould say only one manufactures products fail
but the list of failed products is long and well known
and I would not point to drawmer or symetrix as item of merit
at least not the ones I owned

**** breaks

all of my soundcrafts broke with in the first year
my 840 did as well
symetrix/crest/crown were soooo bad I refuse to touch their stuff
I need to drive my my ls9 600 miles and stay in a hotel 3 days while its
being repaired, at my cost
22 days out of warrantee
I have BSS 900 series eq in my junk pile
there is no exclusivity to the list of failed gear
I WISH I had just one failed manufacturer
That would make life so simple

consider yourself blessed
George

[Eeyore]

Laurence Payne wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:

If you divide price by functionality (which you will need to estimate
numerically), you will arrive at a figure that tells you how long the
equipment needs to last to be worth buying. Halve the price, and you
halve the time.

That's assuming the installation is trivial - send the client a new
one, tell him to slot it in. Gear can be so cheap now that delivery
and installation become the main cost.

Not to mention competent installation.

Did you hear I found 40 or so XLRs wired with the screen to pin 2 when the
licensee decided he was an audio expert ?

The amazing thing was that because it was all run balanced it only hummed
'sometimes'.

Graham

[Eeyore]

"Ron(UK)" wrote:

What I mean is, most users would not expect to have to replace an
expensive big name item of gear after a few years, yet something of the
standard of Behringer - which could pay for itself in maybe one gig -
may be expected to last a corespondingly shorter length of time.
Obviously the complexity of the item pays a large part in the equation,
as does the quality of components, build etc.

The bugger is when it fails on you in the middle of a gig. And the spare in the
truck is dead out of the box too.

No financial saving is worth that.

Graham

[Eeyore]

Ron Capik wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

...snip..

Still NOTHING to do with the bathtub curve though which relates exclusively
to component failure, not physical damage.

Graham

OK, sadly I just got another data point. New unit, fresh out of the box,
worked for about an hour then quit working. The display lights up
and flickers a bit but it won't boot.

Oh, and it was the replacement for a DOA unit I got about a
week ago.

Damn, I don't seem to be having good luck this month.

A 'Friday Behringer' ?

Graham

[Eeyore]

Phildo wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Jason Lavoie wrote:

I'm not at all surprised.. I've installed about 40 of them, and at
least 1/4 of those failed between the 1.5-2.5 year mark.
looking back, your solution may well be the most appropriate, as my
units were 99% fixed installs and didn't suffer any vibration. the
next culprit is heat.

anyway. they are what they are.. just because they're a really cool
tool, and top of the behringer pile, they're still as disposable as
every other piece of behringer gear.

George Gleason and Phildo REALLY aren't going to like hearing you say
things like that !

Was probably installer error, lack of proper ventilation etc.

For a LOW POWER piece of kit ?

Graham

[Eeyore]

Mike Rivers wrote:

Ron Capik wrote:

Damn, I don't seem to be having good luck this month.

I guess you're stuck returning it to the same dealer you bought it from
unless they have a friendly refund policy (I've found that most do).
Stories of Guitar Center and Musician's Friend re-selling returns as
long as they light up aside, your dealer may have received a shipment
from a production run which had a whole batch of defective parts, so all
the units they have in stock from a given batch may have the same fault.

I know a true story from a top-class Chinese assembler. They used to build
for Behringer but Behringer insisted on purchasing the parts. The got a bad
batch of decoupling caps - probably hundreds of thousands and lots of them
'blew' shorted.

The contract said the assembler had to re-work the boards. They didn't take
any more work from Behringer after that.

Graham

[Eeyore]

hank alrich wrote:

Phildo wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Jason Lavoie wrote:

I'm not at all surprised.. I've installed about 40 of them, and at
least 1/4 of those failed between the 1.5-2.5 year mark.
looking back, your solution may well be the most appropriate, as my
units were 99% fixed installs and didn't suffer any vibration. the
next culprit is heat.

anyway. they are what they are.. just because they're a really cool
tool, and top of the behringer pile, they're still as disposable as
every other piece of behringer gear.

George Gleason and Phildo REALLY aren't going to like hearing you say
things like that !

Was probably installer error, lack of proper ventilation etc.

Easy to say and obviously unsubstantiated.

Well it was Phildo !


Counting my own and what I've installed here and in Austin, I've had 3
of 7 DEQ2496's go down, in three years. The first one was under
warranty. I'll becontacting their tech support to see if there is
anything we can do about the two unusable ones I now have on hand. One
no longer accepts analog input. I opened it and exercised connectors,
but nada. The other one no longer has a noise floor; it offers a noise
ceiling.

The are remarkably powerful for what they cost, but I don't take well to
throwaway concepts. None of this is attributable to lack of ventilation,
etc. This is under very easy physical working conditions.

Hence the Horn's no new Behringer policy. Might have something to do with
riders as well.

Graham

[Eeyore]

George's ProSound Company wrote:

"hank alrich" wrote
George's ProSound Company wrote:

I don't see why I have about 40 of the deq's in service for years now and
had one fail, which was replaced overnight by Behringer

Unfortunately that has not been my own experience with DEQ2496's. It'll
be interesting to see if any of the units that have not yet failed make
the five year mark.

I havehad 100% failure rate with my yamaha Ls9/32
doesnt turn me off to the product, just need to keep on top of it.
and I could buy 30 deq 2496's for the cost of a ls9

**** breaks, it's just the way it is

The only stuff the Horn has had break is Behringer, Midas Venice (similar design
concept) and speakers murdered by DJs. Mic stands and stuff of course, but
they're consumables.

Graham

[Scott Dorsey]

Eeyore wrote:
I know a true story from a top-class Chinese assembler. They used to build
for Behringer but Behringer insisted on purchasing the parts. The got a bad
batch of decoupling caps - probably hundreds of thousands and lots of them
'blew' shorted.

This happened to everyone not too long ago, due to some industrial espionage
gone wrong. Some folks stole a dielectric formula, and they didn't get it
quite right, and the caps all failed after a fairly short time. It has been
a big issue with the computer motherboard guys. Lots and lots of different
manufacturers bought the bad formula too.

The contract said the assembler had to re-work the boards. They didn't take
any more work from Behringer after that.

I wouldn't sign a contract like that either.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[John Corbett]

In article , Eeyore
wrote:

Peter Larsen wrote:

Phildo wrote:

OK, point taken. Then too, assuming it worked before they shipped it
one ~could~ call it infant mortality. I would hope they at least do a
power up test.

Wouldn't matter if they did. Who knows what the unit has been through
between manufacture/QC and the user plugging it in. Truck driver
could have gone over some speedhumps too fast, truck may have gone
through a very cold area, the end user may have dropped it before
putting it in the rack etc etc.

Or 4 EU pallets were pushed over the warehouse floor by a forklift at 15
mph, or 4 bundles of boxes where pushed similarly. I've seen it done to 4
plasma tv's in the GBP 5000 each price range... [paraphrasing] that's the
way to do it!

Still NOTHING to do with the bathtub curve though which relates exclusively
to component failure, not physical damage.

Graham

Actually Graham is all wet with regard to the bathtub curve. The hazard
function reflects all failures, not just component failures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve puts it this way:

"... in the early life of a product adhering to the bathtub curve, the
failure rate is high but quickly decreasing as defective products are
identified and discarded, and early sources of potential failure such as
handling and installation error are surmounted."

[Eeyore]

John Corbett wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Peter Larsen wrote:
Phildo wrote:

OK, point taken. Then too, assuming it worked before they shipped it
one ~could~ call it infant mortality. I would hope they at least do a
power up test.

Wouldn't matter if they did. Who knows what the unit has been through
between manufacture/QC and the user plugging it in. Truck driver
could have gone over some speedhumps too fast, truck may have gone
through a very cold area, the end user may have dropped it before
putting it in the rack etc etc.

Or 4 EU pallets were pushed over the warehouse floor by a forklift at 15
mph, or 4 bundles of boxes where pushed similarly. I've seen it done to 4
plasma tv's in the GBP 5000 each price range... [paraphrasing] that's the
way to do it!

Still NOTHING to do with the bathtub curve though which relates exclusively
to component failure, not physical damage.

Actually Graham is all wet with regard to the bathtub curve. The hazard
function reflects all failures, not just component failures.

Not at all. It has exclusively to do with POH (power on hours).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve puts it this way:

"... in the early life of a product adhering to the bathtub curve, the
failure rate is high but quickly decreasing as defective products are
identified and discarded, and early sources of potential failure such as
handling and installation error are surmounted."

Then wikipedia is WRONG in my book. Besides, modern devices aren't especially
sensitive to handling issues (other than ESD) shortof dropping them off the
tailgate of a truck or off a forklift. Which is hardly 'handling error'. It's
GROSS ABUSE. It's more likely to crack a pcb than anything else which has zilch
to do with the device bathtub curve.


Graham

[Eeyore]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
I know a true story from a top-class Chinese assembler. They used to build
for Behringer but Behringer insisted on purchasing the parts. The got a bad
batch of decoupling caps - probably hundreds of thousands and lots of them
'blew' shorted.

This happened to everyone not too long ago, due to some industrial espionage
gone wrong. Some folks stole a dielectric formula, and they didn't get it
quite right, and the caps all failed after a fairly short time. It has been
a big issue with the computer motherboard guys. Lots and lots of different
manufacturers bought the bad formula too.

That was another one. These were ceramic caps. I've seen it happen too in
Studiomaster kit and ALWAYS at power-on. They actually 'burn up' ! We changed to
plastic film (mylar) caps. It can still happen but FAR less often. Also used
lower values. I went from 100nF to 22nF (per Soundcraft). I understand the
failure mechanism is dV/dt failure as the supply rises causing excessive charge
currrent. I've NEVER seen it happen with 'box poly' types btw.


The contract said the assembler had to re-work the boards. They didn't take
any more work from Behringer after that.

I wouldn't sign a contract like that either.

I don't think they were too happy. Excellent firm btw. They built our first ever
'single board' small mixer and they were very reliable. Unlike the protoypes
that came from Phonic (which killed the project).

Graham

[Scott Dorsey]

Eeyore wrote:
That was another one. These were ceramic caps. I've seen it happen too in
Studiomaster kit and ALWAYS at power-on. They actually 'burn up' ! We changed to
plastic film (mylar) caps. It can still happen but FAR less often. Also used
lower values. I went from 100nF to 22nF (per Soundcraft). I understand the
failure mechanism is dV/dt failure as the supply rises causing excessive charge
currrent. I've NEVER seen it happen with 'box poly' types btw.

Who made 'em? It is hard to screw up a ceramic capacitor.... even the modern
multilayer types are pretty easy to make without having them fail into a short.
I'd be curious if these have turned up elsewhere as well.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Eeyore]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
That was another one. These were ceramic caps. I've seen it happen too in
Studiomaster kit and ALWAYS at power-on. They actually 'burn up' ! We changed to
plastic film (mylar) caps. It can still happen but FAR less often. Also used
lower values. I went from 100nF to 22nF (per Soundcraft). I understand the
failure mechanism is dV/dt failure as the supply rises causing excessive charge
currrent. I've NEVER seen it happen with 'box poly' types btw.

Who made 'em? It is hard to screw up a ceramic capacitor.... even the modern
multilayer types are pretty easy to make without having them fail into a short.
I'd be curious if these have turned up elsewhere as well.

These were top class. KEMET maybe ? From asking around I've heard the phenomenon is
well recognised but little acknowledged. They're fine on 5V but not 17V even though
the rating is 50V. Put them *across* the +/- 17V and they're likely to be toast that
much faster.

Graham

[Les Cargill]

Eeyore wrote:

Mike Rivers wrote:

Ron Capik wrote:

Damn, I don't seem to be having good luck this month.
I guess you're stuck returning it to the same dealer you bought it from
unless they have a friendly refund policy (I've found that most do).
Stories of Guitar Center and Musician's Friend re-selling returns as
long as they light up aside, your dealer may have received a shipment
from a production run which had a whole batch of defective parts, so all
the units they have in stock from a given batch may have the same fault.

I know a true story from a top-class Chinese assembler. They used to build
for Behringer but Behringer insisted on purchasing the parts. The got a bad
batch of decoupling caps - probably hundreds of thousands and lots of them
'blew' shorted.

The contract said the assembler had to re-work the boards. They didn't take
any more work from Behringer after that.

Graham


Dell and every other computer maker in the world got bit
by the same problem.

--
Les Cargill

[Eeyore]

Les Cargill wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:
Ron Capik wrote:

Damn, I don't seem to be having good luck this month.
I guess you're stuck returning it to the same dealer you bought it from
unless they have a friendly refund policy (I've found that most do).
Stories of Guitar Center and Musician's Friend re-selling returns as
long as they light up aside, your dealer may have received a shipment
from a production run which had a whole batch of defective parts, so all
the units they have in stock from a given batch may have the same fault.

I know a true story from a top-class Chinese assembler. They used to build
for Behringer but Behringer insisted on purchasing the parts. The got a bad
batch of decoupling caps - probably hundreds of thousands and lots of them
'blew' shorted.

The contract said the assembler had to re-work the boards. They didn't take
any more work from Behringer after that.

Dell and every other computer maker in the world got bit
by the same problem.

That was a different problem (electrolytics) actually.

The one above was MLC ceramics.

Graham

[Geoff]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
Ron Capik wrote:
Eeyore wrote:

Ron Capik wrote:

...snip...

Wondering if I should pop the lid on all my boxes and check
for excess goop... ?

Sloppy assembly. You're probably OK. Nice idea with the chip
heatsink. What was that chip btw if you remember ?

Graham

I couldn't get all the goop off to read it, but it was one of the
large three terminal devices on the processor board. It was
running ~40 F hotter than the rest of the chips before modification.

It's a regulator chip. It's running hot because something downstream
of it is pulling way too much current. Look for a decoupling
capacitor that also feels hot.

The ones on all(?) the smaller studiomaster mixers are on a piece of bracket
a square inch or so, and run too hot to touch.

Graham assures us this is fine for the device , though I don't like the
other components and PCB being baked. But that's just me.

geoff

[Eeyore]

geoff wrote:

Scott Dorsey wrote:
Ron Capik wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Ron Capik wrote:

Wondering if I should pop the lid on all my boxes and check
for excess goop... ?

Sloppy assembly. You're probably OK. Nice idea with the chip
heatsink. What was that chip btw if you remember ?

Graham

I couldn't get all the goop off to read it, but it was one of the
large three terminal devices on the processor board. It was
running ~40 F hotter than the rest of the chips before modification.

It's a regulator chip. It's running hot because something downstream
of it is pulling way too much current. Look for a decoupling
capacitor that also feels hot.

The ones on all(?) the smaller studiomaster mixers are on a piece of bracket
a square inch or so, and run too hot to touch.

Graham assures us this is fine for the device , though I don't like the
other components and PCB being baked. But that's just me.

Is that on the Club models ? Trust me we do extended thermal testing. I insist
on it in fact. Never heard of one coming back for that. The IC chip itself is
rated for 125C (but not on the heatsink itself - the internal working temp).

BTW, just bought a 700D for the local venue to drive the HF as we're going
active 3 way with a Driverack PA.

It's 10 years old and looks almost new inside. The PSU board is actually cleaner
than one I have here sitting in a cupboard. And no sign of thermal stress
anywhere. What a buy for £56 ! It'll do 200+200 into 8 ohms nicely. A UK made
one of course.

Graham

[Sander[_2_]]

Ron Capik wrote:

Anyway, I'm wondering if folks have noted any similar (or other)
non-bathtub curve failures with these units?

I've got 2 of them and they both turned out to be utterly unreliable.
They do work most of the time but regularly cut out at the worst
possible moments.

The first one intermittently crashed and would completely lock up, not
passing any sound at all. (it did show some error on the display)
Sometimes it would run fine for hours or even days, then it could happen
several times in a row. The only way to recover was to power down and
back up. It seemed fine just powered on but when actually passing audio
the fault was more frequent.

I sent it in for warranty repair. It came back "repaired".
It still has the same fault.
Just now when it hangs it reboots itself so it only cuts the sound for a
couple of seconds max.

I decided to give Behringer another chance and bought a second one
hoping that one would be okay.
It too has a fault. Works okay most of the time but sometimes suddenly
starts popping and clicking and flickering the display (PSU issue?)

They're fine units when they work but I found them both way too
unreliable to use in any live rig and gave up on them.

I still do use some of the small mixers and they do what they do well
enough considering the price, haven't had any issues with them.

Sander