Purchasing your first set of monitors is a pain in the ass and one of the most common topics of discussion on and all over the inthemix.com.au Music and Production forums. A poor monitoring environment can help make any producers mix sound like sludge, making it almost impossible to mix accurately for a variety of end user listening environments. A good monitoring environment will help remove a lot of the guesswork from any final mix down and mastering, though unlike some of you would believe, good monitors won’t polish that unfinished turd of a track, just get it ready for airplay on Nova.



Behringer have long been making affordable mixers and effects units, and of late really been upping the ante with their home DJ Pioneer DJM doppelgangers. Now, with their Mackie HR series active monitor equivalent, the Behringer Truth B2031, hitting the streets at a list price of $1011.99 for the pair (remember kids, only suckers pay retail) many people have been scratching their heads wondering whether the accuracy and clarity of active monitors typically at least three times more expensive can be extrapolated down to an entry level product.



First impressions of the Truth monitors are telling. These monitors are heavy bastards, with a substantial 150W rear amplification unit bolted onto a chassis housing an 8 ¾” polycarbonate woofer and a ferrofluid-cooled titanium 2” tweeter dome. The Behringer press materials go to long levels of detail discussing their “controlled dispersion pattern through phase-optimised wave guide system,” with the front of the units each having two large vertical venting slits for bass escape.



Both TRS and XLR inputs are supported off mixing desks, and each unit is self powered off a standard IEC cable (no wall warts), with a power switch on the rear. The units offer the option for automatic power up, as well as the conventional on/off, which I passed on so next time some porno ad pops up on my computer the moans don’t wake up the household. Separate overload protection is available for high and low frequency ranges, and each unit is magnetically shielded for close proximity installation near a computer screen.



High and low frequency crossovers are easily tweakable through the use of a series of slide switches on the rear of the units, with “typical” settings listed for novice users. A room compensation slide switch is also available, allowing you to compensate for speaker positioning close to or away from walls or corners, with a potentiometer available for input trim. High and low frequency mutes are available as “service only” tools, but in most engineers hands will be a useful way of honing in on that troublesome part of a mix for closer inspection.



Cranking the babies up was no tough task, and I ran a pair of TRS leads into the monitors from my Mackie 1402VLZPro mixer. The monitors appeared very staid for the first hour or so of examination and appeared incredibly bright to my long gig damaged ears. Kicking down the treble by -6dB on each monitor brought a much more rounded sound to my source listening material, so I set the levels up on the units to about 2/3 capacity and then wandered off for an hour or so to come back and perform some listening comparisons with the Behringer Truths and a friend’s set of Tannoy Reveals I had in my possession.



At this stage of proceedings, Serotone rocked up and we decided to put the Truth monitors through their paces with some well known tunes from Adam Beyer, Will E Tell, Marco Bailey and Vitalic, as well of some of our own material.



The B2031s are specified as having a maximum output SPL of 116dB per pair at one metre, and are claimed to have a frequency response of 50Hz to 21kHz. Driving them up to where we saw them flash their “limit” light, the monitors were definitely fucking loud, and very in your face. Adjusting the positioning of the monitors to better reflect sitting height and to ensure that the sweet spot of listening was found, we kicked back on the levels and decided to look for how accurately these monitors displayed their input source across the frequency range.



Behringer claim these monitors have been built using highly accurate wave guide CAD CAM design, though it appears that the mid range was overlooked in their designs to ensure that the low and high end response were suitably phat. Driving the mid range up on my mixer to about 3 o’clock was needed to begin to notice subtleties in that part of the frequency spectrum, which you could potentially get away with in some modes of dance music, but would become almost unusable if you were trying to mix any form of guitar based music.



One shouldn’t have to apply an EQ to a monitor for it to sound reasonably ‘flat’. Some user reviews describe the Behringer as being somewhat tinny, however to us they sounded more like they had a big fat hole where the midrange should be. The cheap and nasty sounding tweeter did not detract from the fact that after a few hours these monitors would be very fatiguing, even at low levels.



This is a typical design for a home stereo speaker, but in a home studio would quickly wear down your listening ability, especially the ultra bright top end, which just killed when we played some poorly encoded MP3s. The bottom end was overly emphasised, and we’re sure a lot of people have been disappointed when mixing on these monitors with the resultant output on other systems without this level of compensation.



Comparing the Behringer Truth to the Tannoy Reveal was a good A/B comparison, especially when isolating the mid range. The Reveal’s were unable to go as low as the Truth’s, and didn’t sound half as exciting, which I think at the end of the day is the real problem with the Truth; they just aren’t as neutral as they need to be.



Spending a long period of time warming in a set of monitors is essential to a solid listening environment, and mandatory for any mixing purposes. Using a series of CDs of solid reference material to understand the traits of your monitors and then to use that information to perform mixdown and mastering is something every producer will need to do at some point. This would compensate for the non linearity of the Truth’s to a greater extent, as would the expected wearing in of the monitors through consistent use.



The Behringer Truth is a great entry level product that looks and feels the part. Those seriously considering getting their hands on products from Event, Tannoy, Mackie and DynAudio, (which may run up to several times the price of the Truth’s) and the money attendant with those products are probably justified in passing over the Truth’s, but if you’re on a tight budget and after a solid and likely long lived monitor, or even something good for those home DJ sessions, the Behringer Truth could be just what you’re looking for. For the money, you wouldn’t be able to get any other active speaker of that size full stop. If you are on a budget, or are starting out, the Behringer Truths could be just what you need, and would do okay as a HiFi speaker as well (particularly due to the colourised bass response).



However, you do not have to spend much more to get a lot more monitor.



Editorial note: Much has been said of the tendency of Truth monitors to seemingly ‘blow up’ at random intervals, especially at the power-on stage. This is a known fault of the power supply and any owners of Truth monitors that encounter this problem should contact Behringer for a replacement. The good news is that R&D have implemented a modification to the power supply to stop this problem from occurring. So by the time you read this, the new batch of Truth monitors should be on the shelves.