Are they all clones?

[tboy]

All of the Behringer stompboxes I've seen are pretty obvious clones of well known pedals from other manufacturers. There are a few lists floating around that attempt to match up these knock-offs with the original pedals that "inspired" them. I'm just wondering if there might be any exceptions; does Behringer have any new designs of their own that weren't borrowed from pre-exsisting products?

[tboy]

And another thing...

I confess I haven't looked very hard, but I haven't seen any reports from people who have actually taken these things apart and traced out schematics to see if the circuitry really is exactly the same as the originals. Anybody got links to something like that?

[imaradiostar]

I played a Behringer "memory man" along side with an original. I was impressed by how mediocre it sounded. Internally it was mostly surface mount and didn't appear to be a circuit copy. I know the Memory Men (Mans?) can vary from one to the other but the Behringer left me quite unimpressed. It's a shame- they're very affordable!

Jamie

[defaced]

These guys have printed them:
freestompboxes.org • View topic - Behringer - Hellbabe Wah
freestompboxes.org • View topic - Behringer VM1 Vintage Time Machine

These were the only two on the first page that had schematics. Not sure if other pages have any.

[Mark Hammer]

Behringer has clones of a great many older discontinued Boss pedals, like the Slow Gear, VB-2, DF-2 Super Distortion Feedbacker, and even the Spectrum (why?), in addition to clones of much of the recent Line 6 Tone Core series, like the Echo Park, Roto Machine, and Verbzilla (although their switching system is different).

I bought their clone of the older Boss AC-2 acoustic simulator, and it is basically identical to the AC-2. The major difference is that instead of using better dual op-amps like the 5218, they use TL064 quads, with worse noise specs. And on an acoustic simulator that gooses the top end that was unwise to say the least.

I recently picked up their Phase 90 clone, which has a switch to select script or block resonance settings. It also uses 2N5952 JFETs and a slightly altered output stage, and compares favourably with the P90 I cloned.

Not sure how closely you followed the saga, but the original chassis were much more like Boss boxes in the drawings posted around. I gather Boss felt this was a little too much of a trademark infringement, so the boxes were redesigned to have a rounder front to the foot treadle, as well as different-shape rubber pad, and look a little less like Boss boxes. And of course, Behringer has made a point of using all the same colours as the old Boss boxes, just not on the same effect. They seem to have used much of the same colour scheme for the Line 6 clones, though; green on the Echo Park clone, violet on th Otto Filter clone, brown on the Roto-Machine clone, and purply-blue and amber on the Liqui-Flange clone.

Their business strategy is to place as many features-per-dollar as they can into the hands of users. Part of that strategy involves using other folks' R & D, and making inexpensive recreations. While the pedals themselves often do a respectable job of mimicking the original, they are clearly for basement warriors and not up to the rigours of the road.