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Behringer NX1000D Review (Stereo Amplifier)

amirm

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Behringer NX1000D power amplifier with DSP. It is on kind loan from a member. Can't tell if it is discontinued or not but see it on sale at one place for $299. Retail cost is $549.

I am a fan of orange displays and NX1000D delivers on that (sorry my sample is not powered on):

Behringer NX1000D review power amplifier dsp.jpg


What I am not a fan of, pun intended, is the super loud fan that stays on all the time. I walked away to go to the bathroom and was so surprised that I could hear it from very far distance in the house. Unless you can put it in a sealed cabinet, I don't see it being useful for hi-fi use. Maybe you can modify it to quiet the fan or make it temperature sensitive.

On the positive front, I really liked the look and feel of the control app that talks to it:
Behringer NX1000D Control App.png


The only thing I did not like about it is that it is not clear when some processing is on or off. For example above, is the peak limiter on or off???

The back panel shows SpeakOn connectors:

Behringer NX1000D review back panel power amplifier dsp.jpg


And of course combo XLR/1/4 inch balanced inputs. You can bridge the two channels although I did not test this configuration. The "1000" designation is for total amount of power available. As you will see, I was not able to come close to that in stereo use with 4 ohm load.

Behringer NX1000D Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard:

Behringer NX1000D Measurements power amplifier dsp.png


This is average performance as amplifiers go:

best class D DSP amplifier review.png


But it is good for pro amps. SNR falls in the same category:
Behringer NX1000D Measurements SNR power amplifier dsp.png


Best in class amplifiers produce 96 dB at 5 watts and we are pretty shy of that. So be mindful of background noise you may get out of your speakers if they are sensitive.

Frequency response thankfully is load independent as the company advertises:
Behringer NX1000D Frequency Response Measurements.png


Due to inclusion of DSP though, your bandwidth is severely cut to that of 44.1/48 kHz sampling. So "no high res sampling for you!"

Crosstalk was surprisingly good for the class:
Behringer NX1000D Crosstalk Measurements power amplifier dsp.png


As I hinted, power delivery into 4 ohm is way under specifications:
Behringer NX1000D Power into 4 ohm Measurements power amplifier dsp.png


Even allowing for 1% THD and burst mode, we can't get to the company spec:

Behringer NX1000D Max and Peak Power into 4 ohm Measurements power amplifier dsp.png


How did they get their 300 watt number? Using car stereo "standards?"

Power drops quite a bit into 8 ohm:

Behringer NX1000D Power into 8 ohm Measurements power amplifier dsp.png


Just 78 watts in a pro amplifier??? This is AVR class amount of power, not what you see in this class of product usually.

Multi-tone test shows distortion increasing at both low and high-end of the spectrum:
Behringer NX1000D Multitone Measurements power amplifier dsp.png


We see the same in our power testing versus frequency and distortion+noise:

Behringer NX1000D power vs frequency vs distortion Measurements power amplifier dsp.png


Notice how the 20 Hz distortion rises unusually what way.

Conclusions
We, the home users, look to pro products to get more wattage on the cheap. Behringer unfortunately doesn't give us that here. Instead, it saddles the product with a loud, non-temperature sensitive fan which rules it out of many applications we may have for it. So I don't think it is a fit for what most of us want out of an amplifier even though there are some good qualities like load impedance independence, DSP, low cost, etc.

As is, I can't recommend the Behringer NX1000D.

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mac

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Perhaps a firmware update is possible to disable the fan? I assume it didn't run warm/hot during your testing?

Edit: Several fan swap videos on YouTube to reduce fan noise to inaudibility.
 
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amirm

amirm

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No, it ran pretty cool. I was wearing my IEMs during testing and I could still hear the fan. It is that loud. While running the multiple power sweeps, I thought it actually got louder as that stressed it. Pros don't care about fan noise because they mount them in far away racks and reliability there is more important than anything else. So I doubt that there is a firmware fix for that.
 

Remlab

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Sheesh!
 

Chrispy

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Got any other NX series amps in your queue?
 

YSC

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I can kind of accept the less than stella SINAD as in practice with my Sony ZX300 DAP 70-80db is not really noticeable when not listening to test tones and look for artifacts. but that fan is really annoying I would say even for pro use.

From my own experience an air conditioner or noisy computer fan (you know.. blower style display cards days) makes me need to tune up the speaker volume quite a bit to mask it. of course you can put the rack in a sealed cabinet, but well, that fan was needed cause it need cooling, putting in a sealed cabinet defies that purpose and I could imagine both the life of the product will decrease and at extreme temperature I would suspect some major distortion to kick in
 

dfuller

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Behringer straight up lying about power ratings? I'm shocked. Shocked! Well... not that shocked.

Behringer literally making up numbers for power amps is nothing new and is absolutely par for the course.
 
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dfuller

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Behringer straight up lying about power ratings? I'm shocked. Shocked! Well... not that shocked.

Behringer literally making up numbers for power amps is nothing new and is absolutely par for the course.

Might not believe it but they weren't always that way about their amplifier power ratings. Their EP1500 and EP2500 would actually get quite close to their rated outputs. They've been tested before. They are after all QSC clones. I'd wager their EPX line is also quite accurate as far as power ratings go. They then updated them models to EP2000, and EP4000 and totally lied about their specs. Then the inukes lied and it's been lies ever since.

I still have a bunch of the EP series amps, they're going on 8 years old now and work fine, although one of the 2500's did explode in a spectacular way. Not sure why but it was driving a monitor, low volume. Suddenly it just start blowing smoke and I think tiny flames out the back. Some of the caps just blew the hell up. I replaced them and it's work fine since. Kind of scared of that guy though, he never leaves the garage.
 
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Chrispy

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There is a fan mod using a Noctua fan. I did it to my NX1000 before I sold it and it made a massive difference.

In noise or did it also have an influence on performance otherwise?
 

DubbyMcDubs

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pavuol

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Don't know what Noctua offers but Arctic provides quiet fans for reasonable prices, among these also one with temperature controlled via external sensor (imho better option than change for a fixed low rpm fan):

F8 TC- 80 mm Temperature Controlled Case Fan
"The temperature sensor is on a 40 cm cable and can be placed in the warm areas of your computer. This assures temperatures no higher than 38 °C anywhere in the case and supports the cooling of your CPU or graphics card. On the other side this fan keeps the noise level absolutely minimal and only increases the speed if necessary. "
fan speed 500-2000 rpm
 

cistercian

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The power rating is just lame. Why? I don't get it. My XLS 2502 may not be audiophile but it
is still a powerful monster for the times I want it powerful and loud...which is why I bought it.

It is on now too...and I am playing it entirely too loud! Something this amp cannot do:mad:
 

voodooless

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What a massive SINAD difference compares to the bigger 3000 brother also tested by Amir!

power is definitely a letdown though.
 

tomtoo

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78W at 8 Ohm? And for that a fan that is as loud as a starting F16?

Thats a bad joke.
But its 240 Euro. And not build for a living room.
 
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