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[Kristian Keesling]

Good evening,

I’ve just joined the forum hopes that someone is able to help me out. I’ve spent time searching online for others having similar issues to me with the Behringer P16, but have not been able to find anything.

Here’s a summary of my setup. Behringer X32 connected by approximately 100ft CAT6 Ultranet to a P16-d which powers seven P16m’s. The issue is the sound from the P16m will at times become “muffled” for lack of a better term. This usually happens to all individuals using the P16m, but occasionally some of the units will sound ok and others will be muffled.

Often, turning the P16-d off then back on resolves the issue. Sometimes it requires turning the X32 off and back on. The strange thing is it usually happens after the system has been on for a while. We rehearse at 8:30am on Sunday, and frequently it sounds crystal clear during rehearsal, then when we start service at 10:30 the sound is totally dead. I’ve started rebooting the P16-d right before service, but there are still times when it’s muffled. This morning it sounded excellent in my iem and the keyboardist has to take out her iem because it was so muffled.

We’ve been running this setup for about 4 years and it seems as though the muffled sound is getting to be a more frequent occurrence. I replaced the P16-d about 2 years ago and that seemed help for a while,  but now it is happening about every other time we play. I love the P16m, but it’s getting really tough to deal with the sound issues. Obviously we can’t reboot everything in the middle of service so often we are left with pretty bad sound in our iem’s.

Has anyone experienced this, or do you have any thoughts on what could be causing this?

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

Off the top of my head. Nobody has changed the EQ knobs on the P16m or the limiter settings? Even if I didn't change have you played with the knobs to ensure it's not dirty pots or something?

Other than that how are you feeding the P16m channels? Off direct outs? From groups?

I don't have the console in front of me and don't use the P16 so will need some more info on the entire setup. Is the muffled sound possibly only on a single channel or is it the entire unit? By muffled is it a loss of HF content or possibly a loss of attack? I would imagine that you would notice an issue with digital clock since that sounds rather bad...

[Kristian Keesling]

It’s definitely not an issue with someone changing settings on the P16m. It will go from sounding great to muffled with no adjustments, then sometimes be resolved just be turning off and on the P16-d.

Most of the channels on the P16 are fed off of individual channels pre-eq. Two of the channels are from a mix bus.

I guess it is possible the muffled sound is only certain channels and not the entire mix, but when it occurs I can tell a significant difference in the sound of the bass, keyboard, leader vocals, and my vocals.

Unfortunately I don’t know how to explain the sound other than muffled. It’s more than just missing the higher frequencies as the whole frequency range seems to be affected.

[Erik Jerde]

When it happens is it equally apparent across all P16 units?  You say it can be resolved by power cycling the P16D.  Have you tried power cycling a single P16 mixer to see if that resolves the issue?

Are you using shielded cable?  Behringer does specify shielded cable for P16 setups.

[Kristian Keesling]

It most often happens across all units, but at occasionally it will just be a single unit. Power cycling the P16m does not resolve the issue.

Yes, we are using shielded CAT5e.

[Caleb Dueck]

It most often happens across all units, but at occasionally it will just be a single unit. Power cycling the P16m does not resolve the issue.

Yes, we are using shielded CAT5e.

As cheap as the P16D is, I'd start with replacing that, but that doesn't seem to be the root issue.  Do you have a way to monitor voltage, say a couple SurgeX/ESP devices?  Can you test the AES50 cabling, including shield continuity? 

Any chance of getting a loaner X32 and sending that in for repair? 

[brian maddox]

As cheap as the P16D is, I'd start with replacing that, but that doesn't seem to be the root issue.  Do you have a way to monitor voltage, say a couple SurgeX/ESP devices?  Can you test the AES50 cabling, including shield continuity? 

Any chance of getting a loaner X32 and sending that in for repair?

With these kinds of things, my troubleshooting brain always looks for the common piece of gear.  It feels very weird that it would be essentially a splitter [the p16d], but i guess it's possible.  But my money is on the X32, simply because the Ultranet out is a point of commonality.

If it's at all possible, the first thing i would try to do would be to take a P16 and place it directly out of the Ultranet of the X32 and then take the feedthrough from that to feed the P16d.  At the next failure, check to see if the unit coming straight from the X32 failed as well.  That should narrow it down between the X32 and the p16d.

I would also do everything i could to remove the human factor from the troubleshooting process.  If someone says their mix suddenly sounds "muffled", don't just assume it's the same issue.  Go listen to it.  If it happens during rehearsal, ask to take a couple of minutes to listen to several mixers in order to help track the problem down rather than just resetting everything to make the problem go away.  Often with these kinds of things the troubleshooting process becomes clouded because ANY issue becomes "the muffled sound" issue and that makes troubleshooting all the more difficult.

FWIW, this is NOT a known or common problem with these systems.  I've installed them in several churches without ANY systemic issues over many years of use.  So there is something unusual going on here.

[Daniel Levi]

And given that Ultranet is a digital signal (multiplexed 48k AES3) I would wonder how it can become muffled as I would expect any significant loss of the digital signal would result in break-ups and pops rather that causing the sound to become muffled.

[brian maddox]

And given that Ultranet is a digital signal (multiplexed 48k AES3) I would wonder how it can become muffled as I would expect any significant loss of the digital signal would result in break-ups and pops rather that causing the sound to become muffled.

I agree that the description "muffled" does not sound like any kind of digital audio failure i've ever experienced.

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

I was thinking a probable bit depth issue on the sending side. That would indicate though that the X32 is faulty and not the p16D

[ProSoundWeb Community]