Soundcraft UI16 vs Behringer XR16?

[midwinter]

I'm just about convinced that getting a digital mixer will simplify our rig a bit, and right now I'm trying to decide between the Soundcraft and the Behringer.

Does anyone have experience with these? Will they both work with phones? Or do I need tablets?

I have a trusted friend who loves the Soundcraft, but I'm hearing great reports on the new Behringer gear. Although Behringer always gives me pause.

Thanks in advance!

[JStotes]

I have the Soundcraft and a friend of mine has the Beringer. I've played a couple gigs with him using his mixer and it worked and sounded fine.

Just for fun one night I asked him if I could use my mixer and run sound for one of his gigs. He agreed and it worked fine also.

So, from my limited experience, either one performed well and sounded very good. Like you, I was a bit leery of the Beringer and have had good luck with Soundcraft products in the past, so that's the one I bought. Maybe the effects on the Soundcraft might be a little better, but I can't say for certain because I didn't hear them set up in a side by side test.

Not sure I was of any help, but that's my 2 cents.

[midwinter]

Thanks! Part of the reason I'm asking is I'm reading reviews about the software. The Behringer seems to use an app that gets mixed reviews. The Soundcraft, it seems, uses some kind of fancy web interface, I guess, but one which folks seem to like.


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[Teleplucker]

I have owned both. I started with the Soundcraft. I liked it a lot but the problems with losing connectivity during a gig made me get rid of it. There were also problems with extreme noise on some of the channels when using phantom power. I ended up sending two back because of that issue. So in the course of 11 months I went through 3 Soundcraft mixers.

I was skeptical of the Behringer because of the stigma associated with that product line. However it has done well for me. Know that you need to purchase an external router. It has a built in router and it will work, however if the room fills up with folks using cell phones you will have connection issues with the internal router.

With both mixers I used an ipad, the soundcraft app is more intuitive than the Behringer. The Ipad app has some know latency issues so I switched to an android tablet. It has worked great.

I haven't been keeping up with the Soundcraft updates so maybe those issues are solved. There were lots of promises but still issues when I gave up. There's nothing like losing all control of your mixer during a show. The channels that were active would keep working, but to regain control sometimes required a power off reboot of the mixer, not good.

There is another option to consider, a new version of the Xair 18 that looks the same but is branded with the Midas name. It supposedly has several sonic upgrades that you may or may not need. It does cost a little bit more.

My.02 worth. Digital mixing is great, it is a little scary not having knobs to turn. A phone would work for an interface but I want to be able to see more channels, so I need a larger screen.

[Teleplucker]

The behringer ipad app was just updated this week. I have read good stuff about it. If you are a facebook user there are groups for both mixers with lots of good info.

[midwinter]

Thanks, everyone!

I've also read the discussion about these two on GearSlutz.

It's a difficult decision.

[midwinter]

Hrm. I'm not liking the idea that I'd need a router for the Behringer.

[Cuki79]

A quote from gk56 on gearslutz

A engineering friend of mine tested the noise performance of both Soundcraft and Behringer mixers and as you can see the UI has a 20 db worse noise performance and clear hum when phantom power is activated. Also there is a 50/60 hz hum which is unacceptable for a professional product. As someone pointed out before the mix preamp design on the UI is flawed and that's a hardware issue.
This is really shocking for Soundcraft to release such an inferior product. I returned my UI16 some time ago and bought an XR18. Very happy with it and been using it for multitrack recording with really good results.

The picture speaks for itself

Another quote from DoctorS on gearslutz

The UI preamp performance is based on a bad preamp design that actually uses a volume control IC (NJW1195) as mic preamp. This device is mainly made for attenuation of line level signals. When used as a mic preamp it increases noise floor a lot. There seems to be an additional +18 dB fixed gain stage after that IC making things even worse.
The XR18 uses a discrete transistor / opamp gain stage with an EIN of -128 dBu compared to approx. -108 dBu (without phantom power) on the UI, with Phantom and it is even worse on the UI.

Using a volume control chip as a mic preamp is just unbelievable... Note that the UI was designed by SM-Pro that was later bought by soundcraft. Only the new ui24r has "real" preamps... and it's much more expansive.

If you don't want to buy Behringer check the Midas MR18 which seems to be a "more pro" version of the XR18. (Both are made by Music Group)

[Teleplucker]

I think I recall reading that the Ui16 is not actually a soundcraft design. they bought it and relabeled it. I might be wrong, and after I got rid of mine I haven't been keeping up with it.

External routers are cheap, easy to find one for less than $100. With either mixer it's amazing how much signal processing power you are getting for very little money. For me, the persistent intermittent connectivity issues with the Soundcraft was a deal breaker.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by Cuki79

The picture speaks for itself

That is crazy! I'll give the Behringer a closer look—and again, I'm hearing very good things about it from people I trust.

Thanks!

[Carbonius]

Was just looking at these a few weeks ago. I found the Behringer offered more in my research. Go to page 3 of this thread to see some detailed posts I put there. http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...=453116&page=3

Consider this, the Behringer XR line is after they acquired Midas. Products they've made since that purchase are way different then pre-Midas days. The XLR channels have Midas mic preamps! My local store quit selling Behringer years ago due to their failure rate. They started up with the new line again and have been selling the new ones a lot for a year with not one coming back.

[midwinter]

It was actually your post, coupled with a gig where we refused to use the house PA (which meant I had to bring my own snake, board, etc), that got me looking at this!

[Carbonius]

Is there anywhere near you that rents them? I guess buy and test isn't too bad either. There's not much that can go wrong as far as bending a slider or something and the software is free.

I think I would always want one device (laptop) hardwired to the unit in case something goes wrong with the wireless. That way I'd have a fail safe. Wouldn't have to use it, but nice to know it's there.

System requirements are Windows 7 or later; Apple Mac OSX 10.6.8, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11 also Linux and RaspberryPi.

I just downloaded the software now for fun, took a few seconds. Looks pretty cool. I just can't believe you can get all this for less than some eq/di pedals... and it does WAYYYY more than any eq pedal I've seen. Just look at the para eq alone. Not only can you control which frequency and how high or low you want it, you also control the width of the band. I've never seen an eq pedal that will give you 4 bands of that!

I am still assessing my needs/wants so I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

[Cuki79]

I think it's a bit more subtle. Xr18 has "Midas design" preamps but he Mr18 has real Midas preamps.

"Midas design", I've read somewhere means that the Midas people have been exchanging ideas about this product with behringer designers. But it's mostly a behringer product... The Midas Mr18 is likely to be Midas take on the behringer design...

Anyway xr18 has real preamps ui16 do not.

Cuki

[midwinter]

I'm still not super-excited about having to use an external router with the Behringer.... Is it absolutely crucial to have a router? The places I'd play don't normally have a ton of people on their phones.