Musik Indonesia: Hands-On Review: Behringer B212A and B215A Active PA Speakers

Hands-On Review: Behringer B212A and B215A Active PA Speakers

Posted by Julis D under All About Music's, Music Gear's

Behringer is an amazing company and their new EUROLIVE B212A and B215A active speakers are two of the reasons. They are highly portable and powerful live sound speakers with a full slate of pro features and prices so low they boggle the mind, or at least make you do a double-take.

Low prices are are always attractive—who doesn’t like a great deal—but they also raise the question of quality—is it toy time or the real deal? People who have ordered the B212A or B215A—and there are lots of them—have found them to be the real deal. They find them not just good speakers for the price, but good speakers regardless of price. Most user reviews on musiciansfriend.com give these EUROLIVEs a solid four stars out of five rating which is a strong vote of approval compared with other speakers in this price range.

I too wondered how good they could be with such low prices but was made a believer when I got the chance to try them out. The EUROLIVE B212A and B215A appear well-made. They have all the features you could hope for and they sound fantastic—very clear and clean, even at high levels. I was especially impressed by the strong bottom-end such compact speakers could pump out. They both have serious punch, especially the 15" version that goes 10Hz lower in frequency range.

Power and portability

The main reason the B212A and B215A can crank out the high SPLs is that each houses an efficient 400-watt power amp, so with two in use as mains you actually are putting 800 watts behind your sound. A trapezoidal cab reinforces the sound output. The driver is a long-throw 12" or 15" woofer that adroitly handles the deepest bass tones and high SPLs.

The tweeter is a 1-1/4" aluminum-diaphragm compression driver that delivers clear room-filling highs through an ultrawide dispersion molded horn that gives the sound maximum spread. The B215A cab is capable of SPLs up to 126dB which is about as loud as a speaker should get. Any more and you risk lawsuits.

With all this power and output, the B212A and B215A are extremely portable cabs. The B212A B215A weighs just 43 lbs. and their molded handles make handling easy. weighs just 33 lbs. and the

Versatile design

These speakers are versatile in how they can be positioned. They can be polemounted using the built-in 35mm socket, or thanks to their trapezoidal cab design, placed on their sides as floor monitors or set upright. Because of the design of the horn, sound dispersion is the same whether they are placed upright or sideways.

The B212A and B215A can both be used as single-box, single-channel PA systems. Each has a mic/line input with a volume control, two-band EQ, and a clip LED, so you can plug in an individual microphone, or you can run a small mixer into the line input if you want to connect several sources. Both the audio input and the link output accept XLR connectors and are fully balanced to keep the system free of noise and interference.

Integrated sound processor

The entire system has an integrated sound processor that automatically handles protection functions, dynamic equalization, and an optical limiter so even under extreme use, you aren’t required to monitor the system closely. It runs on auto-pilot, freeing you to just play the music.

A pair of 12s and a pair of 15s give you a great monitor and main stage system for gigs for about a thousand smackers with power included. That’s a hard-to-beat price and when you consider the portability factor and the high user ratings these EUROLIVE speakers are chalking up, it’s easy to see why the B212A and B215A are such hot products these days. It’s that magic mix of quality, functionality, and low price that Behringer does so well.