Behringer Studio XL

I decided to purchase the Behringer Studio XL Controller to allow me to select my recently purchased PreSonus Eris E5 XT studio monitors to listen back through. I also have a power amp driving two 12" X 1" speakers. Not being sure on how to connect everything to the Studio XL, I contacted one of the advisors at Thomann. The technical advice and assistance I received from the Thomann Advisor was astounding and I proceeded with confidence to order the controller and cabling to allow me set up my new piece of kit. Delivery of my goods were extremely fast. I excitedly opened my package from Thomann and within a couple of hours I had everything up and running. Aesthetically, the Behringer controller is very pleasing on the eye and has good quality knobs and buttons which eluminate varying colours of orange, green and red as they are activated. the number of input options are perfect and facilitate my small home studio needs. The monitor outputs allow me to have my PreSonus speakers active. I can also have my power amp playing back at the same time. I can feed the output as said to both or to one whichever I prefer. There is still room for two more sets of monitors at my disposal. Other features include a talkback facility, 2-track input, an USB input as well as direct monitoring through two sets of headphones. In conclusion, I am so happy with my choice of controllers. It is a powerful tool to have in a studio and I would have no hesitation in recommending the Behringer Studio XL Controller to anyone considering its addition to their setup. Again, well done Thomann for bringing top quality audio hardware to me, I have been purchasing from Thomann for a long time now and the service they provide is beyond par.

Sue me, Behringer, but this is an obvious copy of Mackie's Big Knob Studio+ (or is it the other way around ? ;-))

There's one feature making it better, though: the VCA. The pot in my Big Knob Studio+ started crackling after only a few weeks, because it was without VCA. That's not as bad as Behringer's cheaper models (without VCA), which started crackling after only a few days, but at least this one sounds clean - for now (I've had it for six months).

Now I have two bad things to say about it:

Strangely, the jack sockets don't seem fastened to the chassis, unlike in Behringer's cheaper models. I'm afraid they're just held by being soldered to the board, but I'm not going to open it to check that while it's under warranty. In my experience that would make them more fragile. Since I'm not swapping cables around, and I don't let them hang with all their weight, I hope this won't be an issue.

Also, compared to the very similar Mackie Big Knob Studio+, the buttons are much less comfortable to operate. Hitting two buttons simultaneously to A/B compare sources or speakers, you can be sure to miss every other time. That's really annoying.

So, what's worse? A crackling pot, or frustrating buttons? I really can't decide.

As for sound quality: I haven't paid attention to it very much yet. I know the model below this one isn't very transparent (I actually like how it colors the sound, but it's still something you don't want from a monitor controller), but I don't know about this one.

I can only say this: when used as line inputs, inputs 1 & 2 aren't particularly noisy, while they certainly were in the Mackie version. All other inputs are all right in both models.

I can't comment on the USB interface, since I never use it.

UPDATE: After only 6 months, the bog knob became so dirty, or used, or both, that you could hear it even through the VCA (of course it doesn't crackle, but there are drops in level across the course). Also, there's now a L/R balance issue in one of the inputs. So, my final and informed verdict is: piece of crap.