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Midas MR18


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Where do you see the wifi is improved? The mixer seems exactly the same to me except maybe the pre-amps . Other observations:

 

1 - Oh the irony! - Does anyone else find it humorous that, after spending 20 yrs making cheap clones, then buying some of the "name brands" in the industry, Behringer is now going the other way and making more expensive clones of their own products.

 

2 - There are some serious bugs in the Behringer ios app and the android app looks hideous. It's a slap in the face of current users that they'd spend time on this initiative instead of fixing the apps. The ios app hasn't been updated in over a year and, with ios 10 doesn't even show main bus levels any longer.

 

3 - IMO, this is a needless product. Unlike the M32, a "rider friendly" version of the X32 that, at least, has physical faders with a higher duty cycle, there are no moving parts in the XR18. It's also a small format mixer, so really isn't anything someone looking to buy Midas would be interested in unless it was just flat out refusal of looking at the Behringer name.

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Couldn't pay me to use behringer.

 

Well, I've never owned anything with a Behringer logo on it with the exception of the xr18 and (now that I think about it) an fbc1010 midi controller.

 

I have often been paid to use other folks B. equipment.

 

The xr18 quite good, I think, for what it is. I don't think that its any worse than the other stuff at that price point. Internal wifi is useless, so it needs a router, but other than that I've used it on several gigs and never been sad about it.

 

I much prefer it to the cheap analog mixer it replaced, and it doesn't feel like a lot of the cheap crap they seem tot usually make.

 

Maybe the will send me a midas sticker for it. :D

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Where do you see the wifi is improved? The mixer seems exactly the same to me except maybe the pre-amps . Other observations:

 

1 - Oh the irony! - Does anyone else find it humorous that, after spending 20 yrs making cheap clones, then buying some of the "name brands" in the industry, Behringer is now going the other way and making more expensive clones of their own products.

 

2 - There are some serious bugs in the Behringer ios app and the android app looks hideous. It's a slap in the face of current users that they'd spend time on this initiative instead of fixing the apps. The ios app hasn't been updated in over a year and, with ios 10 doesn't even show main bus levels any longer.

 

3 - IMO, this is a needless product. Unlike the M32, a "rider friendly" version of the X32 that, at least, has physical faders with a higher duty cycle, there are no moving parts in the XR18. It's also a small format mixer, so really isn't anything someone looking to buy Midas would be interested in unless it was just flat out refusal of looking at the Behringer name.

 

It says " Built-In Tri-Mode Wifi

router for

direct operation—no need for

external router

 

I took this to mean 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz. Alone or both at the same time. I thought the Behringer was only 2.4 ghz?

Doug

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Now more people can say oohhh those sweet midas inputs again........Seems redundant and I'm not sure why they would rebrand the same product. However I suppose this is V2 with an improved wireless infrastructure. I know if I bought a XR18 and had to go buy a router/switch box to make it work, I probably wouldn't be very excited.

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The MR18 is rumored to have better preamps, but for live sound market that it would get used in, the XR18's preamps are great. I'm guessing that the "Tri-mode" WIFI isn't 5g, but rather refers to access point, client, etc.

however, if it's the impetus for a new app that works with the XR18, that's enough for me to want it to come to market soon.

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It's interesting that Behringer advertised "Midas designed preamps" in it's x-18 mixers (you can't really call the rack mount version a "board" anymore :). The only real difference I find in mic pre's (from high end to cheapo) is noise floor. Over driven tubes OTOH are a different story. I have noticed MINOR differences in the studio (mostly with dynamic mics and probably due to different impedance matching).

 

There IS a difference in the final sound. I have a friend who has an X-32 and an M32 and yes there is a difference BUT I believe it's due to higher bit rate/depth processing inside the box, not the preamps. The preamp selling point I believe is mostly marketing hype.

 

Just my .02

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"I know if I bought a XR18 and had to go buy a router/switch box to make it work, I probably wouldn't be very excited."

 

Well, I already had a spare router, and my boss gave me an ipad as a present, and I already have a backup macbook pro that I use for audio stuff.

 

Of those, the router is the far less expensive additional necessary item, about the same price as the soft case I ended up carrying it in. If I had to purchase a computer to control the thing, I don't think I would have bought it. As it stands, the internal wifi only works reliably enough to do some basic configuration stuff at home, but the ethernet and wifi both seem to be very reliable, at least in my applications so far.

 

Like dogoth, I can tell the difference between playing guitar with a tube amp versus not. But contemporary mic amplifiers all seem like they either work or they don't to me. I don't believe that I can tell anything about preamps. Maybe I am just not very demanding or don't have very discerning ears though. But I couldn't tell you the difference between these preamps and the ones I built from a kit with discrete opamps and transformer ins/outs in most normal usages.

 

I don't really care for the marketing hype around anything, but I believe that hype is just the nature of the equipment that is being sold at that price point. If there are in fact differences between the b and midas units, my speculations would be about software manipulation.

 

 

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It's interesting that Behringer advertised "Midas designed preamps" in it's x-18 mixers (you can't really call the rack mount version a "board" anymore :). The only real difference I find in mic pre's (from high end to cheapo) is noise floor. Over driven tubes OTOH are a different story. I have noticed MINOR differences in the studio (mostly with dynamic mics and probably due to different impedance matching).

 

There IS a difference in the final sound. I have a friend who has an X-32 and an M32 and yes there is a difference BUT I believe it's due to higher bit rate/depth processing inside the box, not the preamps. The preamp selling point I believe is mostly marketing hype.

 

Just my .02

The digital processing is the same in the X32 and M32. The only differences are the chassis, faders, preamp circuit, A/D and D/A chips used.

 

I think that there may be differences in the default voicing of the two mixers; however, I also believe that one can make either one sound so close to the other that you couldn't hear the difference.

 

The rider acceptance and the more durable chassis and faders are absolutely worth the extra $$$ between the X32 and M32 (especially since the price on the M32 was reduced).

 

Since it appears that they did not change the wireless router, the only difference on this new MIDAS is the preamps, A/D and D/A chips .... I am guessing that it isn't a hill of beans sonic difference.

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