anomie life

I seem to have this strange affinity for buying things that look awesome, yet are quite inexpensive. So while everyone has their little Crate 40 Watt 1×10 Combo I have myself whopping Behringer 400 Watt 4×12 Stereo Cabinet. And then I realize I’ve gotta power it with something, so I get a Behringer head. I was so close to getting a Line6 head, but then I saw Behringer’s V Ampire LX1200. Wow… 32 amp models, 125 configurable channels, and its $200 cheaper!

Yea, I admit it. I’m somewhat of a Behringer addict.-so many great looking things for such a low price. As I’ve found, the keyword in that sentence is great looking. (Disclaimer: I have never received products for free from Behringer nor do I receive compensation for writing about their products.)
So anyway, now I have a very impressive looking Behringer half stack. Well, impressive at least to me and the casual passerby, but I’m pretty sure any serious guitarist would snub their nose at running their guitar through anything with the name Behringer on it. I’ve found that although many people look down on Behringer products, many of their offerings are actually quite good and useful.

But $450 for the Behringer 400 Watt 4×12 and 2×60 Watt Head is really a great deal for what you pay no matter how you slice it, especially with some of the features that head has. One thing that would be regarded as great by some (Me), and disgusting by others is the fact that all of its controls except the main volume are digital. This means those knobs can be rotated all the way around and keep going forever. It also means that once you decide your settings you can save them and not worry about someone messing with your settings. The head can hold 125 channels. What this really translates to is 5×25 channels. You have 25 banks and each bank has an A, B, C, D, and E channel.

The head also comes with a foot pedal that allows you to go up or down between these channels, but it only has 2 buttons so you can’t directly select a particular channel. This is really, really annoying. I’ve had more than one occasion where I was playing on, say, channel D and I meant to switch to C, but really ended up on channel B because I accidentally tapped the pedal twice. Also, when switching from a clean channel to distorted channel, it takes a second for it to get to the full volume you had preset for that channel.

The amp and speaker models are mostly worthless. There’s probably about 3 or 4 amp models I like and most of the speaker models just muddy up the sound too. Personally, my favorite sound I’ve gotten out of this amp is using a clean channel with the Boss Metal Zone distortion. That sounded amazing, but it was kind of noisy.

One really nice feature about this amp though is that it comes with a settable noise gate filter that works very well. I’ve found sometimes when using a bunch of effects, combined with a wireless system as well, a lot of noise is created, especially when distortion is on. The noise gate filter is great at knocking this extra stuff out. It also has a built in tuner.-a very useful feature.

The 400 Watt 4×12 Cabinet I’ve found to be rock solid reliable. My only complaint though is with the casters Behringer packages with it. These things are just downright awful. They aren’t ball bearing based and with the 75 lb cabinet pushing down, they’ll roll, but not necessarily in the direction you want them to. Countless times when people have seen me pushing the thing around they’ve asked if a wheel was stuck, and I assumed one wheel was gimpy or something. But after detailed inspection I’ve found that all the wheels are just cheap.

So for $450, I think my Behringer half stack was definitely a great investment. It has its flaws, but overall it makes a great deal. Yes, I’d rather have Vox AC30, but I’d also like a Ferrari. Point being, I can’t afford either one. Who cares if you can get a better amp for $1200, this amp is $450 and its worth every penny of it.