Behringer BCA2000

The price for the BCA2000 was great. Except, the software was stunningly , breathtakingly worthless. I use Windows XP; everytime I turn the BCA2000 on, it wants to reinstall the drivers. It then wants to install the drivers again. And again. And again. Downloaded the lastest software from website, stared at the manual for a long time, etc. etc. 50% of the time, after 'installing' the software', it doesn't work. To sum up, 200$ is alot to pay for a peice of plastic that doesn't function. I suggest you make a replica out of cardboard, paint it, and try to plug it into your computer via USB 2.0. The result will be that same, and you'll save money. Better still, don't buy. Deutchland Uber Squat.

After removing the old soundcard and drivers from my PC, I procedded to load un Windows XP.
Plugged the BCA in to the USB 2.0 port and used the drivers from the website, after a quick reboot it was ready to use.

The Manual is actually really helpful, gives you ideas of setups etc which could help with future expantion.

My setup consists of a Pentium 4 HT 3.2GHZ, 1GB OCZ DDR 466MHZ memory, 1x80 and 1x250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Disks. The Speakers are the Behringer Truth's which have always been great, partly the reason why I bought the BCA.

Once I eliminated the fact 1 of my speaker cables were faulty the overall noise level was greatly reduced and was completely exeptable.

I own a very nice Valve Pre-Amp for my Guitar, I compared it to the Z-Guitar input and found it extremely good. was not quite as warm but when is Digital ever?

The analogue effects are very nice, limiter etc was very nice I am truly shocked at the overall quality tho is as good as any other.

USB has came along leaps and bounds and the card is rock solid, Windows is happy for you to startup without the BCA turned on and never complained when I turned it on once booted.

I have no reason to deem this unreliable, I am running Cubase SL3 and Reason 2.5 and both were perfectly happy.

Never had to use it.

I write breakbeat, elements of Jazz, funk and Drum and Bass. it holds up very well on all these elements. Having an obsession with guitars I wanted something functional, reliable and guitar friendly.

If you are still undesided I would say for the cash u will not find anything close to this price with this amount of quality. If Mackie made this I would have had to pay at least #800!

I purchased this device after some time exploring other sound card options that delivered big latency problems and major headaches.

For the price there is nothing better I have come across. It provides an interface that works, with good ASIO drivers, offering quick access to latency control for a range of programs (in my case Cubase SX and Reason 2.5), with a good and simple monitoring system. I like to think I'm more musician than Techno-wonk (god love em for their dedication!), and I was able to get up and running in no time.

As a one-stop solution (although I've not tested it with older systems), I recommend it very highly.

My only criticism was that the initial driver release version seemed to cause a minor conflict with some non-audio specific programs on my system, resulting in occaisonal 'blue screen' errors. This may well have been more to do with the fact that my system is chock-full of programs and I'm a sloppy housekeeper in this dept.

Regardless, the latest driver release (Nov. 2004), has seen that problem disappear.

My suggestion to Behringer is that they upgrade their site - I would have liked to see more custom-made presets available for download for popular programs like Cubase SX. I've noticed however that more people are using BCA and some of these resources are available in communities of devotees.

You can't really go wrong.

Enjoy

Works great with programs offering high resolution input/ouput. Latency didn't seem to noticeably get worse as resolution increased.

Have to score lower here for blue screen issues (even if they've improved in the current version).

I live in Sydney OZ and their local guys were very helpful in providing setup support. Like I said, I'm no technowonk, but I got going in no time.

I write/produce electonic based indie stuff which references artists like squarepusher, but with deeper roots in punk. I'm open to all kinds of music but I'm most interested in combing anaolog sounds with digital rythms, with attention paid to song structure - either reverently or irreverently. I've played in bands for several years but find the ability to obssess in the darkness of a tucked away room the most liberating thing I've yet to encounter creatively.

The software installed flawlessly and works well, with extra icons in the tray when plugged in.

The left and right mixing is a bit weird, but it allows you to use a stereo analog input and a mono input at the same time, so that is OK. Lots of routing options, but the modes all have LEDs associated with them.

I haven't really needed to use the manual.

I use this mainly as a line in/out device for my computer, will be using the digital I/O to my Behringer reverb when I get the optical cables.

ASIO works fine when selected as I/O, all my applications see it. Tried 44.1 & 48 kHz sampling rate, don't really have anything at the moment that uses 24/96, but it is nice to know that is there. My NI Eastwest Bosendorfer stand-alone works with it fine, much better than with the computer's internal sound card.

Nose gate is kind of abrupt, I probably won't be using it, probably more for guitar. The limiter is somewhat non-intuitive, and the LED associated with it takes a while to dim out, which you might think is good or bad depending on what you expect it to do. The limiter also makes some crackling sounds when doing heavy limiting, but none when doing light limiting. Not sure if I'll be using it too much beyond keeping the occasional peak from causing digital distortion.

Noise floor of the unit seems reasonable. Saw some TL072's in there.

Big trouble for me was when I connected and disconnected a (Behringer B5) phantom-powered mic to the left channel - which blew out the left analog channel mic, Hi-Z, and insert inputs. The left stereo channel is still working so the damage is obviously confined to the circuitry preceeding this. Will be returning it for an exchange.

I may re-review and increase this rating if the replacement lasts.

Never needed it, can't comment.

This is a swiss-army knife of a tool that works well and is priced fantastically low.

It is quite a bit larger than my small Behringer mixer - kind of a land-of-the-giants shock!

The USB interface really didn't work on USB1.1 for me as it requires 83% of the 1.1 bandwidth, and my laptop already had 20% preallocated to the various internal hubs, and another 10% to the optical mouse. A USB2.0/Firewire PCMCIA card fixed that.

MIDI I/O also works flawlessly with my old copy of Cakewalk and my JV1010.

I haven't tried the digital I/O so can't comment on that, but the TX LED is obviously on at the optical port.

I own lots of Behringer gear, and this is the first piece that I've had any reliability issues with. Probably a fluke as it broke in the first couple of hours of use.