The best things in life are simple–and good to boot, December 18, 2007

There are products that are designed to wow us with their seemingly infinite scope of features and permutations; at the opposite extreme there are products that sacrifice functionality in order to be aesthetically pleasing. The Behringer Xenyx 802 falls into neither of these categories. It’s not fancy, but it has a specific use and it just does it well.

There are several different routing options, including separate outputs for headphone monitoring, control room output, and line out. In addition, this little mixer provides phantom power to up to two microphones. The sound quality is very transparent, and you have to really jack up the gain to hear any background noise. Overall, this device creates the clean, even frequency response of solid state electronics but without the cold, brittle digitalian cast that plagues direct digital recording. I use this for recording on my computer via my Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card ( 70SB073A00000 ); I have a somewhat rare cable which converts stereo 1/4″ to stereo RCA, from which point I use a Y-cable to convert to a miniplug (yes, I can hear you audiophiles groaning). Using this setup, with some simple level adjustment on the 802, I can record both my keyboard and my voice (via the AKG Perception 200 Condenser Microphone) with high fidelity. I use this setup for producing demo recordings, but other possible uses include podcasting and pulling mixer duty for a live performance in a small venue.

The on board controls are nothing special, really. The EQ would probably be useful in a pinch, but I generally gravitate toward software-based EQ and effects in lieu of hardware equivalents, if only because I have much more control when using software. I imagine dedicated hardware would probably sound much better, though. Honestly, the 802 doesn’t require a degree in rocket surgery to use; an instinctive knowledge of I/O and a basic understanding of audio equipment are the (loose) prerequisites. And, if you have trouble, the manual is very informative. What’s more, it takes high honors as the absolute best English translation of a manual that I have ever come across.

As far as build quality, when testing out the controls I found that the knobs felt very solid without being sticky. Unfortunately, my unit does not sit flush on the table; I am not sure if this happens often with this model or brand. Other than this, the 802 seems very well made and I get the impression that it could get kicked around my home studio a lot and still keep on working. Reviews at various online music equipment retailers confirm the above.

My sole complaint about the 802 is that it has a somewhat unconventional metering display: While most audio meters will use a row of yellow LEDs to indicate when a signal is coming close to 0.0 dB (without clipping), on the 802 the yellow LEDs light up when a signal has actually exceeded 0.0 dB and is thus already mildly distorted. This is fine on a tube amp, I suppose, but for a solid state device one would probably not want any distortion, and the color coding of the meter is a little strange given that standpoint. I am more concerned when glancing over at the mixer if I am coming close to 0 dB, and a row of yellow LEDs in the -6 dB through 0 dB range would have been a lot more useful to me.

Still, the above is a very minor issue, and overall this is a wonderful little piece of equipment. Does it come packed with ten million different capabilities and features? No, of course not. But it doesn’t follow the annoying modern trend of hiding everything behind a blank exterior with three or so tiny buttons shoved off to the side and out of sight, either (are you reading this Apple and all those like you?). For basic mixing work, small-scale demo recording, podcasting, and intimate live performances, the Behringer Xenyx 802 would be a very useful addition to anyone’s equipment arsenal. There’s something comforting about analog knobs, something musical in exactly the way that clicking through a series of computer generated dialogs or editing patch parameters with a menu substructure and a pair of up and down buttons just isn’t. The tactile sensation inspires a sort of creative mindset, if you will. Call me crazy if you like, but even if analog didn’t sound better than digital (please don’t get into that debate with me; if you disagree than so be it) I would probably still surround myself with analog equipment.

My recommendation is if you need something unglamorous but very capable of accomplishing its intended use, then the Behringer Xenyx 802 is definitely…

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Good for starting, small acts,, June 22, 2011

The Behringer Xenyx 802 is a very nice control board for the price. It came promptly, and included a very nice manual in several languages. I had enough background knowledge to use this product out of the box, but for somebody who didn’t, the manual could very easily explain it to them quickly and have them mixing in no time. The only real thing I noticed quickly is that the light signifying that it is on is obnoxiously bright, to the point where it is distracting. This was an easy fix, I taped a little piece of lighting gel over it and got it to a point where I liked it. I played with the mixing functions a little bit using several techniques and my results are recorded below:

The first test of this unit was simply trying it out with a few different medium quality speakers and seeing how it sounded. I attached an Mp3 player for input and hooked up several bases for output. Most of the controls worked flawlessly, the board didn’t seem to be broken in any way. Distortion was pretty high, I messed with the gain a bit, and played with the various volumes and EQs until I got it how I liked. This would have been a bigger problem if I had been somebody whom had never operated a mixer before, it would’ve taken a lot longer to fix this using only the manual. The EQs worked nicely, the middle functioned particularly well, bass caused some distortion but nothing annoying; however, treble wasn’t excellent, it made the high frequency audio sound a tad metallic and cut off some at the top.

My second test was also with an Mp3 player as input, but this time I used several different types of headphones as output. Distortion was higher this time, and with some songs I could not completely eliminate it. That said, the control room function worked nicely with a little less distortion, and I’m not quite sure why I would want headphones on one of the mains. The EQs did little to eliminate this distortion, as did the gain, but I could limit it using the various volumes.

My third test involved using the mixer as if it were mixing for an actual band. I had a Shure Sm58 wired on input 1, a Crown “Floor Mic” on input 2, a bass guitar and (cheap) electric guitar on input 3/4 , and a keyboard on input 5/6. The whole 3/4 and 5/6 inputs bugged me, as it really shouldn’t have been considered 6 input. I ended up plugging the guitars and keyboards into the double amps because the doubles didn’t have XLR which the microphones needed. That said, phantom power worked like a charm and the floor mic worked nicely. Distortion was considerably lower with my voice as the input, and I was unable to hit any notes high enough to sound bad (well…bad in comparison to my normal voice.) The Bass/guitar match up worked nicely, as the bass EQ barely affected the guitar and the treble EQ affected the bass. This allowed me some level of individuality, but not as much as I would have liked. Distortion was higher in both of the actual instruments in comparison to the microphones, but not in comparison to the mp3 players. This pleased me a little bit, but the lack of individual controls makes me wonder whether setting up this board to run a band would be a good idea.

My final test involved plugging it in to a full audio system in a real venue, and seeing how it sounded there. I tried out several different inputs and outputs, including but not limited to floor mics, sm58s (wired and otherwise), sm57s, a computer, and an mp3 player. The problems were approximately the same; however, with high power amplifiers I didn’t need to use the amplification included in the board at all. Doing this, distortion was cut out almost completely.

So should you buy this board? That depends. Based on the facts that the problems I had with distortion varied based on what else was connected, I would theorize that it probably wasn’t the consoles fault. Personally, if I could do it all over again, I would try and find something that has a few more EQs and a higher level of individual control. I also would enjoy a slider rather than a knob for volume, but that’s just nit picking. One interesting thing to take notice of is the fact that while the boards in this line directly above this one have more inputs, they only have EQs on the first 2, so this board is arguably better than the ones above it. This control board is definitely worth the price for educational purposes, and it could possibly be good for small bands that want their own boards, starting Deejays, low budget community theaters, etc. This thing would be particularly good for places that mostly do talking, like churches. But if you need to do any recording, or you’re a group that does music but CAN afford a higher quality board, than this may not be the board for you.

Other features that generally bugged me:
-No EQ bypass: a lot of mixers have a button that chooses whether or not to apply EQ, as it isn’t desirable in all…

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Good Bang for the Buck, July 18, 2011

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