- Hi, I'm Jordan from Kettner Creative.
In this video,
we're gonna compare the Yamaha MG10XU audio mixing console
to the Behringer Xenyx Q1202 USB audio console.
Now, before we compare feature to feature and spec to spec,
I'm just gonna let you know a couple things.
One, we're not gonna plug any microphone
into either one of these,
this is just a overall console walkthrough,
and we're gonna talk about
a lot of the specs that are on them.
For plugged in, if you wanna hear how these console sound,
we have in depth like 10 minute videos on either console
where we plug in a whole bunch of different microphones,
show you how the EQ sounds, the compressor sounds, all that,
so that those are more deep dive walkthroughs.
This is more a feature comparison.
Now, before we compare features as well,
we do need to talk about price.
At the time of this recording,
the Yamaha is about 25% more
than the Behringer in my market where I live.
But we have links in the description below
so you can check out current pricing where you live,
and that will help you make your decision
as you want to learn more about either console
and find out if one is the right fit for you.
Now, let's just quickly take a look
at the back of either console.
So you can see here the Yamaha has a locking power connector
and the Behringer does not.
The Behringer one does wiggle around a little bit.
We did have quite a few issues when we were testing
with the sensitivity of this.
We did figure out
that you just really have to crank that power cable in,
so keep that in mind.
Right off the bat, I think that's a win for the Yamaha
having locking power connector there.
I don't think this is a major threat to the Behringer,
but do keep in mind that
you probably wanna throw a piece of gaff tape around it
to hold it in if this is an install or a live event.
But just really make sure
that that power cable is locked in good.
And then beside that,
we do have the USB output on either one.
Now, on the Yamaha the USB output,
while we're talking about that,
let's talk about the specs of it.
It's 24 bit and 192K.
The Behringer is 16 bit and 48K.
So keep that in mind.
Significant quality difference there.
The Behringer is more kind of CD quality,
and the Yamaha is many multiples or
magnitudes of difference better than that.
So keep that in mind
that the Yamaha has a better USB output.
While we're talking about outputs,
let's talk about the Behringer's stereo outputs.
All puts all the outputs on the Behringer are unbalanced,
but the headphone jack does have TRS.
On the Yamaha, all the outputs are balanced.
That means that you can convert
the quarter inch outputs to be XLR,
you can run it a thousand feet
or whatever the theoretical maximum of XLR is,
but you also get XLR outputs are balanced as well.
And the FX send is balanced as well,
the monitor outs are balanced, the headphone jack balanced.
Now, while we're talking about outputs as well,
the Behringer does give you a RCA output,
that's a copy of the main mix that's wired in parallel.
And the Yamaha doesn't,
the Yamaha gives you XLR and quarter inch
and the Behringer gives you quarter inch and RCA.
Next we're gonna talk about
the output fader on the Behringer.
They do give you a full fader, which is a nice touch,
where on the Yamaha you do just have the rotary knob.
A lot of people prefer faders,
you can really dial it in
it's faster to get where you're trying to go.
So it's better for that reason there.
Next let's talk about the channel strips on either device.
On the Yamaha, you do get these combi jacks
and you get a 26 decibel pad with it.
On the Behringer, the jacks are separate,
which isn't a big deal,
but there is no 26 decibel pad.
So that means that
if you're plugging an instrument in the Yamaha,
you're good to go.
Plug your electric guitar in,
and if you need the pad to bring the impedance down,
go for it.
But on the Behringer,
even according to the manual,
you do need to run your guitar through a DI box
before coming into this to bring that impedance down
to a more manageable level for the Behringer.
So keep that in mind.
Right there is like the first kind of hint that
if you're ever gonna plug a guitar into your mixer,
go with the Yamaha
because the price difference is cheaper than a DI box.
So right there is a big win for Yamaha
if you're comparing the two
and you plan on plugging instruments into it.
Next let's talk about these pre-amps.
On the Behringer, you have a 60 decibel gain on the pre-amp,
and on the Yamaha, you get 64 decibels of gain,
so you get four extra decibels there.
When you're comparing the noise of them,
the EIN is within a point of each other.
So I don't think it's worth bringing up,
but for that same rough amount of noise,
you get the four extra decibels on the Yamaha.
So I think that's a big win there.
Next we're gonna talk about the compressor.
On the Yamaha, you do get two compressors,
and on the Behringer you get four.
So that's great.
They both work very similar in that they both add gain
while lowering the threshold.
According to the diagram on the Behringer,
it does seem like it has a fixed compression ratio
where the compression ratio on the Yamaha is dynamic,
it's slow slides from a one to one to one to four
as you bring the compressor up.
So keep that in mind.
The EQs are very similar.
It's a 12K versus 10K,
two and a half K on both of them for the mid.
And on the low end, the Behringer is 80 hertz
and the Yamaha has 100 hertz.
Now, they both have high pass filters.
The Behringer calls it a low cut.
The high pass filter on the Yamaha is 80 hertz
and the low cut on the Behringer is 75.
So keep that in mind.
Just a little bit lower
to clean up some of that mud on the Behringer
and the Yamaha is just a little bit higher.
So just keep that in mind for personal preference.
Next let's talk about the FX send as we work our way down.
The Yamaha is very straightforward,
you just dial in the FX that you want.
It comes, and then here's another huge difference.
The Yamaha has the built-in FX engine.
So that right there is another big win.
For that 25% price,
you're getting the whole FX engine with 24 FX.
Super useful if you're doing
live streaming, music, podcasting,
and you want to integrate those effects into there.
But the FX send on the Behringer
basically just kicks out through here.
You're intended to run it through an external FX,
or you can use it as an aux channel to run to a monitor,
or if you're doing a mix minus set up,
you can run to a phone caller for your podcast
or something like that.
But if you're running it through an FX processor,
then you'd bring it back through
into one of these stereo inputs
and then dial it in
if you have reverb or something like that.
Now, for the Behringer,
you do get a couple of really nice options
with the FX send that I think are super interesting.
You get a master FX send level, which is great.
The Yamaha doesn't have that.
It's very nice to have.
Like I said, if you set up a whole mix minus
you get them all nicely dialed in relative to each other,
then you plug it into your phone for a phone caller,
and then you realize the whole signal is too hot,
and you're in this weird position
of slowly bringing them all down and needing to recalibrate
where on the Behringer,
you can just lower the whole level of the channel,
that's great.
You'll also get this other option on the Behringer
that goes FX to control room.
So what that does is it'll take your FX mix
it'll kick it over to your headphones
or your control room like monitor outputs.
And that will let you monitor it as you dial in your mix,
and then you can click that off again if you want.
The Yamaha doesn't have anything like that.
So that's another big win for the Behringer there.
They both have panning, which is pretty straight forward.
They both have rotary level knobs.
One distinct difference between them too is
it's more of a syntax issue,
but the Yamaha has a triangle and the Behringer has a zero,
which stands for unity.
So keep that in mind that they're both the same thing,
they're just speaking a different language there.
Next let's talk about the stereo inputs.
Now, this is where I'm gonna judge the Behringer
based a little bit off of my experience with it.
On the Yamaha, we have three pairs of stereo inputs,
on the Behringer, it has four pairs.
You'd think that that would be a win for the Behringer.
Now, with my honest advice about the Behringer,
I've never seen a Behringer console
that's more than a year old
with all of his channels still working.
That's why I'm comparing a 12 channel to to a 10 channel
because in my experience,
I've probably seen 30 analog
Behringer consoles out in the wild.
They just don't,
they just fall apart to be perfectly honest,
and you will not have all your channels working
within a year.
That's my experience.
Maybe if you have this thing on a desk
and you're babying it,
and everything's plugged in,
but everybody that I knew,
if I see these things at churches, schools,
even people that have them at home studios,
there's a reason I never see these things
at other rental houses like ours,
just they are not durable.
When you compare that to the Yamaha,
we have about 15 of these
that have seen somewhere between five and 7,000 events,
we've never had a single hardware related issue.
We put them in a soft case
and we throw them in the cable trunk
and they show up every time.
I don't know a single person that can say that
about a Behringer analog console.
I'm not talking about Behringer digital consoles,
that's a completely different thing.
The digital end
has a completely different set of reliability ratings
compared to the analog stuff.
But so when we're comparing the fact that this has three
and this has four stereo inputs,
just count on some of your channels
on the Behringer dying
so you get two extra
when we're comparing these two together,
that's where I'm going with this.
Now, with that, the Yamaha can EQ the stereo inputs,
the Behringer cannot.
You can just fade or do the FX send.
They do have some like impedance settings
on the Behringer as well.
So if you need to adjust the sensitivity,
say you're doing a line level input or something like that
that is more or less sensitive,
you do have a little bit of adjustment
that you can make there.
Now, on the Yamaha with these stereo inputs,
for each of them, you get an RCA alternate for two of them.
And on the last stereo input,
you get the ability to work with your USB input.
So let's talk about the USB inputs on both of these.
Like I was saying, the Yamaha one treats it like a channel.
You can choose to turn these two stereo inputs off
and you can turn the USB on.
And the USB would come in through this,
say you're playing a Spotify playlist
or if you're doing recording through your DAW or whatever,
you can bring it back through here.
And then you can choose whether or not you want that to go
through your main mix or to your headphone jack
or in room monitoring.
And then you EQ it and add it to your FX
or do whatever you're wanting to do.
On the Behringer, it just comes in full volume
and you can choose where you patch it.
So you can choose
whether or not you want it to go to your control room,
your monitors and your headphones,
or if you want it to go to the main mix.
Now, if you click to main mix,
think about this in a live event setting,
it's gonna try to do you a favor
by preventing a feedback loop.
So if you bring it in from your computer to the main mix,
you press that,
it will cut the feed off
from the output of this mixer back to your computer.
So it's trying to prevent
there being a feedback loop that goes around.
So keep that in mind,
if you running it into the main mix,
it will automatically cut everything off.
And then both of them have 48 volts of phantom power.
So they're both
capable of working with condenser microphones.
Okay, so how would I compare these two?
Where would I use one over the other?
It's really tough.
To be honest, the Behringer has its place
in one or two situations.
I think the Behringer console here would be good for a DJ
that's not running a ton of speakers.
Just because the main outs are unbalanced,
it means that you can really only run to speakers
within 20 feet of you.
So if you're a DJ
there is a speaker left and right of your table,
then you're good to go.
This gives you lots of ins and out for wireless microphones,
lots of stereo inputs for all your DJ gear.
I think that's a really good use for it.
Another good use for this I think is podcasting.
I like the features that you get
with the FX or aux send here,
and the fact that you get an aux master
and you get the ability to dial in your mix
using this toggle switch here,
which lets you preview it on your monitors.
It has lots of good inputs and outputs,
but it is missing some features
that I would say appeal more to live streamers
or those who also wanna do some home recording
or wanna do bigger live events.
So let's switch over to the Yamaha.
The Yamaha has balanced outputs,
which means that you can run powered speakers indefinitely.
As long as you do a powered speaker every thousand feet,
it'll keep re-amping the balanced cable
and you're good to go.
So that's insane.
I've never been in a situation,
we do so many events,
but the ability that to have balanced outputs of this,
even for the FX send,
so I can run 50 feet to a stage monitor
or do something, a media feed or something like that,
this gives you way more flexibility
because the outputs are balanced.
Next on the input side,
you have 26 decibel pad on four of them.
So you don't need DI boxes
if you're plugging instruments into this.
It will bring the impedance down
to a manageable level for you that's so much better.
Also on the stereo inputs,
if you're doing computer inputs
or if you're doing live events like a wedding,
or if you're doing video streaming or something
and you're bringing in a feed that just sounds not right,
you do have the ability to EQ your stereo inputs,
which is mega,
plus you get the RCA inputs,
I think that's a huge win for the Yamaha.
And then let's talk about the USB input
the ability to actually set the volume,
EQ it if you need to,
you can patch it however you need using these two buttons.
I think the Yamaha is much better
for video streaming, home recording, live events.
I would limp on the Behringer if I'm a DJ
or if I'm just doing podcast recording
and it's just sitting there.
But I wouldn't trust this thing
if I needed to put it in a bag
and travel to and from events.
I've seen too many of these with dead channels,
they just wear out over time.
But if you look at this Yamaha console,
this thing has probably been hundreds of events already.
If it's anything like the other,
the average console of ours
that's been to hundreds if not thousands of events
over its lifetime.
And they all look and function as if they were new.
We just throw them in a soft case
and throw them in the cable trunk
and they work day in and day out for us.
Plus you get the FX on these compared to the Behringer.
So I think it's pretty clear here.
I think the Yamaha is a huge winner in almost everything
except with how it deals with the FX send
the Yamaha is a winner.
Obviously, you need to make the choice
whether or not the extra money is worth it.
If you're just trying to get into it
and you need a cheap console,
the Behringer is the choice for you.
If you know that you're gonna be doing this
for years down the road,
you want something that'll last forever,
or you want something that has better resale value
in case you change your mind,
the Yamaha is the better choice for you.
Again, if you do wanna see current pricing or specs,
we have links in the description below.
If you have any questions about either of these consoles,
please leave a question in the comment section below.
And if you wanna see more videos on either one of these,
please like and subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching.
(upbeat music)