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Budget vs Expensive

#41
not a fair comparison really. Markbass is maybe slightly above average quality. I personally find them to be unimpressive.
A better comparison would be Behringer VS Mesa Boogie, Genz or Aguilar. Those are the reliable brands that I see guys who can play anything playing through. That and of course good ole Ampeg.

See if you can't sit down with a Behringer amp and a Mesa or Aguilar and then tell us it isnt a "night and day" experience.


If I was going for a cheap, decent sounding reliable amp. GK would be my first stop.
 
#42
seamonkey said:
I doubt there's much of any measurable reliability difference between a cheaper amp and an expensive one.
Click to expand...

There is. Cheaper gear is cheaper because it uses parts that just to spec or sometimes under spec. That is ok, until you get a small power surge or brown out in the line, or somebody cranks the amp up a little bit.
 
#43
There's no reason to believe some parts are under spec. If the cheap has a 3-year warranty then they would still lose money if they had to repair.
Same parts, same suppliers, Cheaper can mean costs are controls elsewhere.

Surges and brown-outs are overrated. They just don't cause that many problems.
 
#44
Calaverasgrande said:
not a fair comparison really. Markbass is maybe slightly above average quality. I personally find them to be unimpressive.
A better comparison would be Behringer VS Mesa Boogie, Genz or Aguilar. Those are the reliable brands that I see guys who can play anything playing through. That and of course good ole Ampeg.

See if you can't sit down with a Behringer amp and a Mesa or Aguilar and then tell us it isnt a "night and day" experience.


If I was going for a cheap, decent sounding reliable amp. GK would be my first stop.
Click to expand...

This. I second this comment.
 
#46
There is a difference between budget and cheap... When you buy cheap you usually get what you pay for. If you buy pricey gear used at a reasonable price as far as I am concerned that is budget.. I have owned several GB heads.. all great stuff.. all used.. and I think the most I paid was $500. I have noticed that with cheap gear.. even f it is not bass gear, you will usually have to wind up buying it twice sooner than the more expensive gear..
 
#47
seamonkey said:
I doubt there's much of any measurable reliability difference between a cheaper amp and an expensive one. But for some reason people feel better about spending money on fixing an amp that cost them more in the first place.

You get a 3 year warranty on a cheap amp these days.

Sound wise, they are sounding good.
Click to expand...

What is your basis for the above claim???


- georgestrings
 
#48
Calaverasgrande said:
not a fair comparison really. Markbass is maybe slightly above average quality. I personally find them to be unimpressive.
A better comparison would be Behringer VS Mesa Boogie, Genz or Aguilar. Those are the reliable brands that I see guys who can play anything playing through. That and of course good ole Ampeg.

See if you can't sit down with a Behringer amp and a Mesa or Aguilar and then tell us it isnt a "night and day" experience.


If I was going for a cheap, decent sounding reliable amp. GK would be my first stop.
Click to expand...

Agreed on all of the above...


- georgestrings
 
#49
hsech said:
Budget = What you can afford.

Expensive = What you would like to be able to afford.
Click to expand...

To a certain extent. I could afford a $2k bass but I just don't want to spend the money. I'd say budget is what you can justify spending & expensive is what you can't justify spending.

I'd like to hear an amp tech or two chime in on cheap gear vs not with regards to returns and fixes. The amp tech I use absolutely hates Behringer and sees more of it than anything else.
 
#50
I'd love to see Bobby's rankings of gear.

It is amazingly complex when one dives into the design pool. The differences in cost between different grades of components is significant. Then there are the details of performance, which are all over the map in audible impact. Moving around in just a family of op amps has both performance and price impact. Then, like anything else, a poorly integrated set of great parts still has problems.

Good luck making sense of all of it. I can't.

Except, the better gear is low in noise, able to be repaired, can survive getting dropped and won't melt into slag if run hard.
 
#52
Never owned a Behringer. So I can't really comment on that but I do think the amount of money people spend to get the slightest improvements in tone can be silly. I've been using ampeg classic cabs (which are relatively cheap btw) for well over a decade and the sans amp RBI (maybe $300) since the month it was released. I've recently been debating upgrading the RBI with a PSA (for multiple channels)and my heavy swr750x head (that i use as a power amp) with something much lighter like an svt7 or something. But im not considering say an all tube head at all. Is there stuff that sounds better than my rig? Sure.... Is it really worth paying for something super expensive that i'd use for shows. Absolutely not. The reason being is live the pa, stage, and the room all have their own qualities of sound whether they be good or bad. At the local level its more often than not bad. It's really kinda silly to play an all tube svt through any sub par pa. Now would I use a svt classic in the studio? He'll yeah. But the thing is a lot of good studios have several amps to choose from. Around here almost every nice studio has either a svt classic or a mesa400+. Even if Im going to a studio that doesn't have one, I can rent one. So why spend the money?
 
#53
seamonkey said:
I doubt there's much of any measurable reliability difference between a cheaper amp and an expensive one. But for some reason people feel better about spending money on fixing an amp that cost them more in the first place.

You get a 3 year warranty on a cheap amp these days.

Sound wise, they are sounding good.
Click to expand...

That's called a framing bias. Another way to look at it though, is that most people would spend $300 to fix a $2000 item, but not the same $300 to fix a $350 item. This works for amps, espresso machines, and just about everything else.
 
#54
1. Something loud enough.

2. Something loud enough and reliable.

3. Something loud enough, reliable, with great tone.

4. Something loud enough, reliable, with great tone, and is easy to transport.


This is a typical amplification "evolution" of priority points for bass guitar (give or take, and sometimes in between, but close enough), and it gets more expensive the further down the list.

We all are not going to have same priority points on the list at the same time.
 
#55
seamonkey said:
There's no reason to believe some parts are under spec. If the cheap has a 3-year warranty then they would still lose money if they had to repair.
Same parts, same suppliers, Cheaper can mean costs are controls elsewhere.

Surges and brown-outs are overrated. They just don't cause that many problems.
Click to expand...

Most of us would rather not have to RMA an amp or take it to a a service center. I simply do not see a 1, 3 or even 5 year warranty as anything to brag about. I'd rather an amp just work and not blow up.
As far as the parts, there are certainly different grades of quality in electronic components. Ask anyone with an Orange Terror Bass that has had to replace the power supply cap.
I think they would have preferred that Orange had specced a 25v Panasonic for that part instead of the 16v cheapo cap that explodes. (I know Orange isn't Behringer, but it is the typical kind of issue that I've seen with B-gear. Underspecified power supply components.)
 
#56
Orange Terror's aren't "cheap". And their cap problem seems to be "design" not a quality of components problem.

The warranty indicates how much the manufacturer stands behind their quality. They all know "repair" is more costly than build it right. It's a liability for a manufacturer to have a long warranty, it better work.

Bottom-line: Build it right and you can put a longer warranty on it.
 
#58
The whole thing between "budget vs expensive" is going to be very YMMV/luck/taste/hit-n-miss.

For instance, I play a Bugera (Behringer) amp as my only gigging amp, no backup (my backup is a DI that I could hook up right out of my pedalboard). I've been using it at weekly rehearsals and biweekly gigs for going on two years now. Never had a single issue. It sounds amazing, gives me exactly the sound in my head, and cost me less than some of my effects pedals.

But I know that a lot of other people around here have had bad luck with Behringer gear. So, do I agree that Behringer has a quality issue? Maybe, all I know is that I haven't had an issue, so you can call it good luck, or maybe this one model is really well made and reliable, or maybe it's all a bunch of BS.

I take it as a case-by-case basis. Some budget stuff is crap, some is awesome (which I consider my amp to be). Some expensive stuff is worth it (like my Ric bass), and some of it is hype and BS.
 
#59
seamonkey said:
Orange Terror's aren't "cheap". And their cap problem seems to be "design" not a quality of components problem.

The warranty indicates how much the manufacturer stands behind their quality. They all know "repair" is more costly than build it right. It's a liability for a manufacturer to have a long warranty, it better work.

Bottom-line: Build it right and you can put a longer warranty on it.
Click to expand...
Orange Terror Bass are made in China, same as Behringer/Bugera. Quite a lot of companies that make stuff in China use the same small group of Chinese and Taiwanese power supply manufacturers. The 16v cap might have been adequate if it had been a decent Panasonic capacitor. Since it was an FM/FC knock off it probably popped way before it hit it's max rating. Most of the horror stories I have read about the Terror Bass indicate they failed at far less than max power.
That was enough to scare me away from Chinese made Orange. Of course I only brought up the Terror Bass issue because it's the same kind of problem B gear often exhibits. Except folks pay so little for Bugera/Behringer (and so much for Orange) that I doubt they bother to take it in for repair.
I bet you even Behringer just tosses the broken ones that are RMA-ed and ships a new unit. Can anyone who has had warranty repair on B-gear comment? I would like to know.
As far as standing behind a warranty, how manyn warranty repairs have you had done? For the most part warranties are a joke. But what are you going to do if a company jerks you around? Small Claims? Contact the BBB?
 

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