The Behringer era

It’s actually pretty close. There are lots of Behringer haters that seem to be on a mission against them… you included.

That’s fair. There’s an article on gearnews that reports an independent job website reports it at 43% favorable. But that was awhile back. I tried to search it again but you have to translate it and Im not going to do that.

Interestingly, something like 74% of China’s population are projected to be classed as “middle-class” by 2022 vs c4% as recently as the turn of the millennium. At a holistic view you could just as easily argue that the big bad corporations based out there are doing a lot of good for your average Chinese citizen!

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Im not a Behringer hater. Im an exploiter / imitator hater.

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https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/MUSIC-Tribe-Reviews-E662385.htm

I have no idea if this is accurate but it is interesting to see some of the comments.

I’m aware of this neo-liberal argument.

The world could just demand global standards and be done with it.

You say Elektron gear is assembled in Sweeden so it’s ok. But I think they assemble from parts made in China :joy:
I guess your computer & phone also has parts made in China.
So, it’s gonna be really hard if you want to boycott everything around you.

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Your friend:
e47

Increasing awareness and transparency around exploitative business practices can only be a good thing.

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Note : I took on myself to rename this thread.
First, it unites every side-discussion about Behringer practices. Secondly, the old title was a call for rather pointless flame wars…

I chose something like “the age of Behringer”.
I hope you’re ok with this.
You may like it or not, but things are going to change with such a major actor distributing cheap yet interesting gear like they do.

Now the discussions can go towards the yet again speculation topic : “what kind of impact are we likely to see?”
:tongue:

Oh, and that would be cool to avoid cynicism or angry discussions between two persons, as it rarely ends well.

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Then why do you hate Behringer? They are not exploiting anything. There are laws for patents and all of their synth clones are legal.

There literally aren’t factories for PCBs and electronic components in the west, there’s no other option. The best we can push for at this point is Chinese factory workers getting decent pay and conditions.

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Yeah this argument.

I do what I can to avoid contributing directly to the practices I see as indecent and unprincipled.

A lot of my tech is used. If I know a company practices innovation and decency then I’ll do what I can to support them.

Of course it’s not perfect. But I’m not a defeatist. I think awareness and choices to support another way can lead to betterment.

As I said, I believe they moved their production to a place where labor exploitation is all but a given. I think their prices reflect this. I choose not to support that.

Imitators because most of their products are just lame imitations and carefully crafted methods to avoid patent disputes.

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I‘m all for what Behringer do. From my point of view formerly highly sought after collectors items becoming commodities will put pressure on other manufacturers to innovate. I very much doubt the conditions under which their stuff is produced is any better or worse than other manufacturers. If they use existing designs that are in the public domain it might be lame, but so what? Of course if they infringe on other people‘s intellectual property and use their market power and high paid lawyers to get away with it, I‘m not cool with that.

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The whole western civilisation is built on exploiting other less fortunate economies.
Whole mankind for thousands of years is about exploiting the people or animals or plants. We just like to take and have more than others. Sad really…

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I highly doubt they are level with regulations in the States or Sweden (esp Sweden).

They’re slimy, and no matter what they come up with, I’ll never buy it.

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But my point is it doesn’t have to be that way and I choose not to support that.

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We all love cheap gear, but make no mistake: Behringer is well known to employ exploitative practices.

It’s fine if out of spite, willful ignorance or plain and simple lack of caring you don’t feel it necessary to base your choices, attitudes and purchases on that bit of info. But just because you don’t care for it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I appreciate the people on forums trying to raise awareness so that we can make informed decisions. We vote with our dollars/euros/pounds.

All that said, Behringer are playing thr volume game at what are likely to be super low margins. It’s a legit market strategy but one that long term errodes the attractiveness of an industry and thus tends to lead to smaller players (margin driven) to exit the industry. This in turn leads to oligarchic structures and finally stifles innovation and customer orientation in the long run. If Behringer alone will have that effect I can’t say at all (I doubt it…at least I hope not), but we need to be mindful of that also when we buy blatant knockoffs at production costs.

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So anything made in China is a no-go? You are not going to be using many instruments (or electronics in general) with that policy. Moog, Elektron, essentially everyone uses chinese components.