Almost exactly 5 years ago today, I received the Behringer Xenyx x1832USB mixer to use
and learn.
A colleague I was working with at a radio and broadcasting internship bought me one
to figure it out and master it for their live broadcasts.
At the time, this beast of a mixer seemed way over my head and a tad overkill for my
needs, but over the past 5 years I've gained a pretty solid understanding of its inner
workings and I've finally started to grow out of it.
I have a new mixer I'll be setting up in its place, so it's time to give this ol'
boy a review, isn't it?
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I'm EposVox, here to make tech easier and more fun, today taking a look at this bad
boy, the Behringer Xenyx x1832 USB mixer.
Despite its size, this is actually a "small format" mixer.
It features 14 inputs, the first 5 of which can be XLR or 1/4", with the "award-winning
Xenyx pre-amps" for your XLR mic inputs.
Supposedly these are… good? ...but I personally have not been a fan.
To be fair, my experience with bad pre-amps is limited, but I've always had to use external
pre-amp tools with this mixer for most of the mics that I've used.
So you've got 6 mic inputs with XLR or quarter-inch, channel inserts for those inputs - allowing
you to route them out to separate effects processors and back - then 8 more inputs lined
up as dual quarter-inch inputs for stereo or mono via the left channel.
The 6 mic inputs have a gain knob for the pre-amp and a built-in compressor knob.
All inputs have a level adjustment pad for +4db or -10db.
All inputs also have… all of these other knobs.
You've got a 4-band EQ for high, high-mid, low-mid, and low frequency tuning, aux sends
controls - which I never got working well - FX application levels, left-right stereo
panning, and a mute button.
Flexible output options are available, as well.
You've got your standard phones output up top, then on the back you have Main Outputs
available in XLR and Quarter-inch, sub-mix output via quarter inch, and a "Control
Room Out" via quarter-inch.
This is a 2-bus mixer, meaning you have a main mix and a sub-mix.
I use this HEAVILY for streaming and inspired my primary interest in learning audio mixing
for streams and information that I regularly use to this day.
I have mine set up as a spaghetti monster I wouldn't wish on anyone, which is why
most of the footage is of it extracted from my setup… hard to decode here.
So for each input's fader, you have 3 switches - Solo, Sub, and Main.
"Solo" sends the signal to what is essentially a "soft mix" of sorts - it only goes to
the headphones and control room out for you to hear.
If you want to hear and monitor a source, "Solo" needs turned on for it.
"Sub" and "Main" are for the sub-mix and main mix, respectively.
I utilize this to create a main mix of all of my input sources together - something I
don't use all that often anymore - and a sub-mix with just my microphone inputs.
I use this sub mix as my primary input in Windows.
This way, I have a clean, microphone-only input to my PC that I can record and send
to VOIP apps like Discord, Skype, etc. without the people I'm chatting with hearing an
echo of themselves.
Then, if I need a full mix-down for live streams, I have that running in, as well - though I
mainly just mix to headphones for me to hear and capture main mix sources in software anyway.
The issue with this kind of setup is that for every different mix you send to a single
computer, you need a unique Line-In port on the PC.
Which… virtually none have.
So since 2013 or 2014 when I decided to handle it this way, I have been utilizing both the
motherboard Line In port on my PC and a PCIe sound card - the Creative SoundBlaster Z.
Main mix feeds via dual quarter inch to 3.5mm cable into one and sub mix into another.
This also then gives me the benefit of having two output channels - line out from the motherboard
and line out from the sound card - both which get routed into the mixer.
The main PC out handles all of my PC's default sounds - desktop use, games, videos, etc.
The second output from the PC has VOIP apps manually assigned.
This way I can balance my game sound and chat sound, for example, for me a LOT better - and
keep them separated in OBS since they are now running to two physically different devices,
without the need for Virtual Audio Cable, VoiceMeter, etc.
This has been very handy.
Annoyingly, however, the SoundBlaster Z ALWAYS defaults to 5.1 surround sound, instead of
stereo, upon reboot - which can cause Discord to not want to output to it.
I've never really found a fix for that, which is why I'd like to move away from
using it.
To get around this, I've been using the obvious solution in front of my face.
Most computer monitors have a headphone output jack.
So I simply have routed one of my monitor's headphone jacks to a mixer input, and that
serves as the output device for my VOIP calls from Discord and Skype.
That way I have a separate volume fader on the mixer for me, a separate device to map
in OBS Studio, and I don't need a second sound card.
Just about everyone can do this!
The FX slider also allows you to map which tracks it plays to, and then you can turn
up FX levels per device.
So I have FX set to only apply to my microphone devices - so when I unmute FX, my mic has
the effects applied.
The built-in 24-bit effects mainly include reverb and chorus-style effects.
You can change them up here by the LCD display.
Below that, there's another equalizer - a 9-band stereo graphic EQ that applies to the
whole mix, based on your settings here.
I used the onboard EQs and compressors at one point in time, but mostly leave these
off in lieu of separate hardware processors such as the DBX 286s for my primary microphone.
This board also has a virtual surround sound control, which could be neat, but I always
avoid, and a voice cancellation button for running karaoke.
You can also achieve more output routing via the Mon Send and Aux Sends setups - as well
as the "2Track" RCA routing - but I found these to be overall more messy than just using
a sub mix, and never put much effort into figuring those out.
Lastly, of course, this mixer has USB output, buuuuuut I have honestly found that feature
to be all but useless.
It uses generic ASIO4ALL drivers, only sends the main stereo mix to the PC, and overall
was just way too quiet to be usable.
In my original testing, even clipping the main mix would be like -40db input to the
PC, and then amplifying it up brought crazy noise floor with it.
No thank you.
Plus USB audio just sucks anyway.
Speaking of noise floors…..
This mixer gots problems.
I have spent the past 5 years trying to clear up line noise issues with this mixer.
At first, I blamed PC fan noise and spent ages throwing up those crappy foam tiles and
trying to clear up room noise.
Then I blamed bad power and we added more grounding pigtails to my outlets.
Next, I got a bunch of those car-purposed "ground loop isolators" for the 3.5mm
runs - which helped a LOT.
But over time there was still some high-frequency hiss and etc. going on.
I bought a power conditioner to run all my audio gear from, bought a lot of those HumX
per-plug ground loop fixers, nothing was a complete fix.
For basic audio run-through, the mixer was totally fine - but post-processing and amplification
brought up the hiss and noise a LOT.
Nothing truly fixed my issues until I found another Behringer product only just in January
of this year - the HD400 Hum Destroyer.
Running any inputs and outputs through these boxes - 1 box per stereo pair of quarter-inch
connectors, which got very expensive - fixed my issues.
But everyone I talk to in the audio space says that that should not be necessary.
The mixer itself - even with no inputs - has some noise issues.
It could be specific to my mixer - but I've seen similar complaints from others about
this mixer and about Xenyx products on the whole, so I'm thinking either it's a trend
or a big quality control issue.
With my mixer, as well, my 6th mic input shorted out at some point.
Whenever I was using direct mic inputs and needed the phantom power switch on, the compressor
light for that input would always light up when turning it on and it would pop.
Even without phantom power, that input just doesn't work and never really has.
I've also run into issues where sometimes I'll go to record my microphone and one of
the channels is totally glitched out and staticy.
Usually the right side.
This only happens with microphone inputs (even though they're mono) and I usually just have
to power cycle the mixer or switch inputs enough until it resolves.
All of this seems to point to bad capacitors in the mixer, a common problem with cheaper
solutions.
Back to good points, the mixer is compact for everything it has, and comes with rack
ears in the box to add to a rack-mount setup, which is how I had it set up for a long time.
There's probably more to this mixer that I haven't learned or covered, but this is
what I've gotten from it through my 5 years of use for content creation, voiceover, streaming,
broadcasting and so on.
For $250 - though it was $300 when I got it - it's got a pretty good value going for
it, I just wish the USB support was better and that it didn't have so much trouble
with line noise.
While the original plan back in May-ish when I shot this review was to switch to the PreSonus
StudioLive 16.0.2 Firewire mixer that I picked up, I've actually switched back to the Behringer.
The PreSonus doesn't have the same bad input issues as this mixer, but it still needs hum
destroyers to clear out high frequency bleed, Windows keeps disconnecting the firewire audio
device - a common issue with FocusRite USB interfaces - and it is much more difficult
to do convoluted things like sub and main bus mapping, effects application, and it is
even finicky about stereo sources.
While I'm sure it's a great mixer for many uses, this Behringer X1832 mixer puts the
controls I need right in front of my face and where I need them.
So I guess at this point I'm just ordering a new x1832 or the x2222 which can be had
for the same price, to swap in place.
As always, affiliate product links will be in the description below if you wanna pick
one of these up for yourself.
Despite its issues it has served me very well for nonstop use and virtually 24/7 power-on
time for the past 5 years, which is incredible.
Very few pieces of gear last me that long.
Hit the like button if you enjoyed, subscribe for more awesome tech content, and I'll
see you next time.
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