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SWR WorkingPro 15 200 Vs Behringer BLX3000

Darknut

Darknut

Apr 4, 2009
1,101
209
www.mikeniccum.com
#1
I had a trio gig tonight at a local blues club ... its a real nice place. We had been told it was a "very" live room & we had to keep the volume down (They had a shield around the drums that our drummer hated) I didn't know they had backline so I took a little Behringer BLX3000 that I use for a duo I do one a week.

I bought the Behringer BLX3000 last year because it was dirt cheap & has a very small footprint ... & the thing sounds surprisingly good.

On to the point of my story ... the amp the club had was a brand new SWR WorkingPro 15 200 Watt combo.

It sounded great just as I expected but what I didn't expect was that the Behringer BLX3000 will bury the SWR hands down volume wise & sounds every bit as good.

I'm not bashing the SWR, on the contrary, it was great & I still may end up with one but the BLX3000 is a lot of amp if your more into the sound of the amp than the name on the amp.
 
#2
SWR's have a quirk in that the Gain control is part of the overall volume control scheme of the amp.

You'd actually use both Gain and Master to set the output volume of the amp, as the Gain control works differently than what you might expect.

It's possible that the WorkingPro 15 is a lot louder than you think.
 
#3
SlowpokeJoe said:
SWR's have a quirk in that the Gain control is part of the overall volume control scheme of the amp.

You'd actually use both Gain and Master to set the output volume of the amp, as the Gain control works differently than what you might expect.

It's possible that the WorkingPro 15 is a lot louder than you think.
Click to expand...

I had a while before the show to play around with the SWR ... its a very cool amp but it def won't go as loud as the BLX3000

I used the SWR for the show BTW ... like I said it sounded great.
 
#4
I have an SWR working pro 400, and this thing is a monster. The high end tones are phenomenal and the low end has great sustain. I've tried Behringer stuff before but I really don't like the tone. SWR's I find are very "bright"
 
#5
will33 said:
It's no contest, one says behringer on it, the other might be a decent amp. Really, from experience, stay away from the behringer stuff, it's cheap for a reason. It's like the difference between buying a cheapa$$ drill you hope holds together long enough to hang a few pictures at yoir house vs. getting one that can build your house.

My experience has been with their mixing boards. If you need 12 channels, buy 16, you're going to lose some along the way. I know a couple bassists who bought their amps and 410 cabs because they were cheap. They also sounded like crap, both cabs blew up under less than abusive conditions and they were both shopping for new rigs in a years time.
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I totally agree. If it's going to be used for any other reason than playing at home, you can't take the cheap route. More sooner than later it will be noticed.
 
#6
The behringer likely has a big response hump tuned in the cabinet to make it sound louder. SWR's baked in preamp voicing notches out all your 200hz meat of the bass sound. That's why they seem underpowered.
 
#7
dvdbassist said:
I totally agree. If it's going to be used for any other reason than playing at home, you can't take the cheap route. More sooner than later it will be noticed.
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The comments from the gear snobs on this forum about Behringer stuff really cracks me up ... I've been playing a long time & I've had way more failures with other gear than I've ever had with Behringer ... Ampeg has been the worst by far.

I've gigged with this little Behringer combo at least once a week for over a year now & it hasn't failed yet & if it does it was so cheap I'll just toss it.
 
#8
Darknut said:
The comments from the gear snobs on this forum about Behringer stuff really cracks me up ... I've been playing a long time & I've had way more failures with other gear than I've ever had with Behringer.
Click to expand...

+1, and most have probably never used Behringer gear live. I used a Behringer BX3000T, and BX4500H for many years, by choice, and never had problems with them. I once had an Aguilar AG 500 shut down at a gig and replaced it with the Behringer. The Behringer performed with no problems, and sounded better too...IMO/IME.
 
#9
Well Tonight was the 6th gig at this blues club using their backline SWR WorkingPro 15 200.
Now that I've had a while to mess with it I'm positive I would never buy one.

It sounds fine but it is gutless if you need even a little balls ... this gig I've been doing is about the lowest volume gig I've done in a long time & the SWR WorkingPro 15 200 just barley cuts it.

As I said it sounds fine its just really under powered for a band situation IMHO
 
#10
I've gigged several times with a friends Behringer full stack. 1x15 + 2x10 with 450Watt Ultrabass head. Mainly with the college band ('orchestra'). It's loud, sounds great, and hasn't failed once.

He bought it with a Warwick ProSerie Corvette Std 4 Ash for under £900 for the pair.

Excellent value in my opinion. I'm rather jealous.

Behringer has a bad rep for reasons I understand, but never have I experienced such problems myself.
 

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