Behringer KX1200

Straightforward... easy to use

Excellent features... good eq, well designed with controls at front, all plugs at back, separate power cord.

Sound quality of this amp is very good for the money. In fact I would go as far as saying anything equivalent is twice the price... that being said I have heard better, eg rolands high end keyboard amp, but that's three times the price.

seems good so far... haven't had it long anough to say.

never used any

This keyboard amp/pa is possible the best new amp I've seen on the market in years. It's value for money is second to none and the amp is generally very well designed, has good sound quality (15 inch woofer, 5 inch midrange & piezzo tweet) and offers all of this in a good portable package. If you're after a value for money keyboard amp/pa - buy it.

The KX1200 is a pretty simple keyboard amp. I play rock/pop/folk through a Boss GT-6. I like to use keyboard amps because the GT-6s amp emulations are much better on a full range amp or PA.
This amp has 4 channels plus RCA's in for CD/tape. It is a pretty basic amp, but it is a BIG amp for it's price.

It does not come with rollers but has nice side handles that makes dealing with the weight much nicer.

Compared to my other keyboard amp (a Peavey) it sounds OK, but not great. A little muffled for some reason. I hooked up a EQ to and was able to get better sound than with it's built in 4 band EQ.
I use the amp to practice at home. Works great for that.

I think the cabinet could be designed to breath more freely and it would liven up the sound some.

I practice with it but so far it seems pretty good. I agree with the other reviewer...They ship in too small of a box without enough padding. I got mine from MarsMusic.com. The SMALL styrofoam corner pieces were shatter and flattened by the time I got it. Fortunately the amp was OK though. I'd give it a 6, cause it was packed so poorly, but since it took the shipment with no damage...I'll upgrade it to a 8.

n/a

More and more guitarists are looking a keyboard amps for their amp emulating effects chains, and for their accoustic guitar sounds. This is the cheapest of the big amps. It is priced similarly to a Roland KC 100 (60 watt), and sounds better than that. It is BIG, it is loud.

My other amp is Peavey KB/a 300, which is an excellent, excellent amp for my use but costs twice as much as the Behringer. I'll continue to play out with the Peavey. I bought the Behringer for practice and occasional (experimental) use to sit beside the Peavey for stereo work.

This amplifier, a new offering by Behringer this year, for my particular unit appears to have been manufactured in January of 02, judging by the date code. 120W RMS into a 15" woofer, passively crossed over to a 5" midrange cone and piezo tweeter. There are 4 balanced inputs with TRS phone jacks (tip-ring-sleeve), but the inputs are unbalanced if you are only using standard phone plugs (TS). Each channel has its own volume control and effects bus send, with an effects send/return bus output/input on the back panel. Channel 1 has an additional balanced MIC level input, there is a 4 band equalizer (bass, low-mid, high-mid, treble) cut and boost with dial controls. There is a master volume control and a headphone jack which cuts the main output to the speakers for practice purposes. In addition there is a direct out (DI) for connection to a board or studio balanced input, and a main line out for running an additional amplifier. I have my keyboards connected to a Behringer MX 802A mixer and my harmonica microphone also connected into the mixer. I use the mixer for my instrument controls so the way I use the KX1200 is simply to run the mixer's left and right main outs into two channels and set their levels to the same value and the EQ flat. I'll do the EQ from the mixer as well. The amp has more than enough power for my purposes, and the real test was to set my Yamaha MIDI keyboard to a drum set sound, turn up the volume and see what it could do. Transient response was excellent with no perceptible distortion. The amp is solid state.

The amplifier is a keyboard amp. There is no built-in distortion and I suspect a guitar through it would need an amp/cabinet modeler to get a realistic guitar sound characterized by other amplifier/cabinet combos. The amp has a bit of hiss which seems to result more from the MX802 mixer more than the amp itself. I would have expected better input/output compatibility since both are Behringer products.

This is where I question. I have been a fan of Behringer products and nowhere else will you get a better price/performance ratio. However... I ordered this from Musician's Friend online. The packaging is so poor that there was a LOT of cosmetic damage (broken corner, lots of tears in the vinyl, dings in the wood under the vinyl, bent screws, etc., so much in fact that I thought they sent me a scratch & dent model. I paid for a new one. The people at Musician's Friend promptly sent me out a new one, but while I was waiting for the new one to arrive, the amp chassis in the first one failed. It worked well for about 10 minutes at a time and then broke out into a screeching feedback-type howl even with all knobs turned to zero, that would only go away by turning it off. A few minutes later, turned it back on and everything was ok for about 5 minutes until it happened again. This is obviously a unit which, despite claims by Behringer of high quality, ISO 9000 processes, etc. made it past QA without thorough testing. I suspect that a component has a failure in the power amplifier which runs away as the unit heats up. The replacement unit works great and that is the unit I rated above, although the packaging for the second one wasn't in much better shape than the first. Although Behringer claims that the unit was "carefully packaged at the factory" for tough shipment, I don't see it. The unit is nearly 70 pounds and should have more than some chintzy styrofoam corners 1/2" thick and a single layer cardboard box taped shut. The unit I sent back to Musician's Friend was double boxed using the cartons from both the new and the defective amp just to insure it gets back in one piece. It's warrantied for a year, but I have left it on for the past 4 days hoping if it breaks down due to infant mortality, I'll know soon enough. The warranty is for a year.

I sent my concerns regarding packaging in an e-mail as well as comments in my product registration, but have gotten no feedback from Behringer regarding this. Who knows how to get in touch with them, although they do have an office in the U.S. the unit is manufactured in Germany.

I love the sound of the amp and just as soon as I can get a Rotosphere, it will complete my setup so I can get a Leslie sound for the organ samples on my Yamaha as well as the clean sound for the rest of the sounds. My Yamaha has a DSP for effects and reverb modeling but the rotary speaker sounds leave a lot to be desired so I'll go to the Rotosphere for that. I've been a musician for nearly 30 years. Price/performance is good, but I'm a little gun shy on the quality area and if I had to replace it, I might just spring for the extra bucks for a JBL EON G2 just so I wouldn't have to go through the hassle. But time reliability remains to be seen. At the moment, though, I'm quite happy with it.

To begin with, this is a keyboard/compact PA amp-but I have discovered that it is amazing on bass (I will explain throughout my review). Behringer started to manufacture this unit in 2001. This is a 4-channel combo amp that delivers 120 watts into a 15", a 5", and a piezo. Each channel has its own Pre-gain Control, and there is a Master Control for the overall output. The EQ is four band, with controls for Bass, Low-mid, High-mid, and Treble. It also features an Effects Loop that also doubles an output that can be fed into a monitor. Each channel has a control to set the amount of effect (like, a flanger for instance) that each individual channel gets. It has four line-level inputs as well as a mic input on Channel 1. It also has a built-in D.I. to send the output to a mixer. It has a Headphone output along with RCA inputs/outputs to hook up a tape deck should one wish to play along with a tape-or to record what is being played. This is a solid-state unit. I only wish that it had an additional speaker out-but it is possible to drive an additional amp using the Line Out. Other than that, this thing is loaded with features!

I am one of those annoying "busy" players. You know, one of those guys referred to as a "frustrated guitar player"-a phrase that I have truly grown to hate over the twenty years that I have been playing bass, since it is an incorrect evaluation (I think the phrase must have been invented by an insecure guitar player-HA!). In the eyes of the mis-informed, if you're a bassist that plays more than four notes a measure while using overdrive-then you must not really be playing bass. Well, I pity the small-minded folk! I play using two outputs from my bass, one that is pure & clean lows, and the other which has my distortion and effects-a setup which has proven itself time & time again in power-trio settings (BTW-history lesson. Billy Sheehan has perfected this-but it started in the '60s with John Entwistle-God rest his soul-PLUS, why do you think Rickenbacker made the 4001 with two outputs, hmmmmmm???) And after years of lugging around two amps and cabinets, I started looking for a versitile mutli-channel setup that was easy to move and powerful-but that didn't cost an arm & a leg. I found the KX1200 on the next to the last page of the American Musical Supply catalog, and thought that it might do the trick. Man, was I surprised! This thing makes a KILLER bass rig! It has more than enough power for a club stage, and it doesn't weigh a ton! The EQ is really versatile, and can produce a whole myriad of tones. After doing a small party/gig to test it out, I had a lot of guys come up to me & ask me about the amp. They totally dug the sound that I was getting! Bass players AND guitar players!

I have only just now started to play out live with this amp, so I cannot really give an opinion about the longevity of these amps. But if they are made as well as Behringer makes all of its other gear, then I can only assume that it must be able to stand the test of time. And it seems to tolerate my brutal over-driven bass assault really well!

Before buying the rig,I placed a call to Behringer Customer Support up in Washington state. Since bass amps usually have a very high input impedance, and the Behringer's is somewhat lower (like a mixer is), I was concerned that it would not produce an adequate matchup. I spoke with a very knowledgeable tech, and he told me that it should be fine-but he recommended that I use a speaker simulator pre-amp. It turned out that the amp works great without any simulator!

I can honestly say that this amp has gone beyond my expectations, and that I am more than happy with it. I have been playing bass for over twenty years, and I have played through a LOT of different amps in my day. This amp is exactly what I have been looking for, and if it were ever stolen, I would get another KX1200.