Behringer B2031A

Behringers B2031A

Like all Behringer products, the monitors have an abundance of features for the price point.
It has Room compensation which may come in handy as we’ll see below.

A general overview of them:

Nearfield Monitors.
50 Hz – 21 kHz frequency response.
8.75 inch polypropylene woofer.
Ferrofluid-cooled tweeter.
1 year guarantee

Perks:

Low frequency room compensation up to -6dB.
High frequency room compensation from +2dB to -4dB.
Automatic power switch that activates when a sound signal is detected, and that turn off after five minutes of silence.
Overload protective limiter so if sound levels get too loud it won’t damage the speakers.

So how do they sound?

I’ll start with a common claim that they tend to be too bright. I don’t find them top heavy, but believe the critique is most likely a result of the character of the tweeters being very distinct at the crossover point, compared to the woofers character.  Since a lot of instruments have higher harmonics accompanying them, the more controlled mid range sound and the sharp high sound lends a bit of a mismatch.
So I wouldn’t call it bright in the sense of having louder treble, but more a case of a bright character as opposed to a smoother sounding one.

Rear panel includes all the room control options for optimizing less than perfect acoustic conditions.

It has an apt mid range which I would define as having a bit of “plasticky” character which is more common amongst polypropylene speakers. They do however brings out the mid-range in a very level manner.

Where it drops the ball is in the Bass region. You may think that you could get away without a sub-woofer by having such large speakers but don’t be fooled. These don’t give across a good low end response. Below 125hz it sounds weak. You will likely find your mixes far too bassy on large hi-fi systems until you mix in consideration to this flaw.

Does this mean that you can’t get a good mix out of them.
Not at all.

The strength of the system is that it showcases all the frequencies very coherently. These were my first monitors, and when I got them I had headaches when listening to music with them since I was presented to a world of all the frequencies unfamiliar on standard hi-fi systems. Of course I adjusted to this and now actually prefer listening to music on Monitor speakers.

But back to the B2031A’s..

A point strongly worth mentioning is that the room acoustics seem to impact their sound very greatly compared to other nearfield monitors. As such you have to tailor your studio very carefully to ensure a proper result. Since most people buying them will have home studios, this can be a problem and should be considered carefully if you are working in restricted room settings. It has some room compensation for this specifically, but honestly I found relocating them and treating the room to be far more effective and I would using the compensation.

One of the most important aspects in addition to sounding good is the longevity of the speakers. In this regard as always Behringer leave too much to be desired.
A few weeks after the 1 year guarantee was up, when turning them on, one of the speakers started pushing outwards with a loud “pop”. Not good. I’m no electronic expert but I imagine this is most likely the wearing out of a component designed to resist the initial surge of electricity coming in. This also started happening to the second speaker shortly after.
I turned the speakers off minimally after this.

Also one of the speakers automated shutoff/startup system stopped working properly. It took a  very high volume for it to recognize an input signal.

Then after a few months I started hearing an annoying hiss in the one speaker.  I unplugged everything except the speaker, and the hiss remained leaving me to the upsetting fact that my speaker now suffered from a sporadic hiss that comes and goes. I managed to live with this until purchasing a new pair of monitors, but I assure you I wouldn’t buy from Behringer again.

In Summary

The B2031A’s are a high end amateur or entry level professional monitor. Whilst obviously not being able to compete with higher end (and much higher priced) monitors, in the realm which they are made for they would earn a solid 3 stars if not for their poor durability which Behringer products are plagued with.

Sonic Brilliance Rating: * *