Behringer A500 - Any Thoughts?

[chrism]

Seen this one come up a few times in the past and wondered if anyone has given the relatively low cost B A500 amp ago? I am interested in if it can realistically compete with more expensive offerings and what modifications could be done to improve it's weaknesses i.e. removing the pots etc.

Can it be made to beat my Avondale A260 I wonder?

Regards

Chris

[Beobloke]

I'd give it a miss if I were you. Decently powerful and good specs on paper but sounds fairly unpleasant across the mid and treble.

Other than to drive the bass end of things in a tri-wired setup, I wouldn't put one into a hi-fi system.

[icehockeyboy]

I'd give it a miss if I were you. Decently powerful and good specs on paper but sounds fairly unpleasant across the mid and treble.

Other than to drive the bass end of things in a tri-wired setup, I wouldn't put one into a hi-fi system.

Wot 'e sed!

Add to that a reputation in commercial use anyway, of blowing up!

[chrism]

Thanks guys,

Have you tried one or is this what you have found out. I am interested in anyones findings after having a dabble with one inparticular. If anyone has one to sell I would be interested and would use it for a spot of wintertime modding .

Regards

Chris

[The Grand Wazoo]

I may be wrong, but I think Jerry had a brief flirtation with these.

[Haselsh1]

I bought one of these from Digital Village back in maybe 2005. The sound was truly awful but I put that down to a fault or possible fault and sent it back. Trying to get a refund from DV was another story alltogether as I almost had to take them to court and had to seek the advice of consumer groups.

The amplifier only likes to be used with a preamp as, as soon as you lower the front pots, the sound starts to break up significantly. It is all but unusable. There is no way I could recommend one of these from first hand experience.

[The Grand Wazoo]

A quick search reveals some of Jerry's thoughts, which are rather different to what everyone else has been saying about these:

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...500#post171520

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...A500#post72135

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...Behringer+A500

[twelvebears]

I may be wrong, but I think Jerry had a brief flirtation with these.

I think you'll find that Jerry has flirted with most audio products at one time or another...

[jandl100]

I think you'll find that Jerry has flirted with most audio products at one time or another...

Hi Steve!!

I've more than flirted with the Behringer A500 - I've fallen madly, deeply in lurv with them!

I positively, totally, utterly disagree with those who diss this amp.

I think it's fab ... you should have heard it drive my old Infinity RS2.5 ribbon hybrids - totally yummy.

Get two and bi-amp. I did. Fabulous.

A Wammer bought one on my recommendation to drive his power hungry Apogee big ribbon speakers - most amps wimp out - he was delighted with the A500. It did a more than creditable job.

Too cheap for some folks, I reckon. Their loss!

[Macca]

I have two of them I bought off Jerry ages back, not really had a chance to have a proper play with them, one is still in the box, one is earmarked to drive my home built subwoofer. On a brief listen I would be inclined to agree with Adam's comments however if it were truly that bad they would not have sold any so I suspect it is fussy about speaker loads and pre-amps.

As for them blowing up in studios I would imagine that is down to monoblocking them into low impedence loads and then thrashing them, something the manual specifically advises against.