This is a review and detailed measurements of the Behringer A500 "Reference" Power amplifier. I purchased this unit on suggestions from members from Amazon for just $199 including Prime shipping.
Being targeted at the pro market, this is rack-mount unit with heft heatsinks on each side:
Full compliment of inputs are provided from RCA to balanced XLR and TRS. No input selector is provided though and the manual warns against simultaneous connection to more than one input.
The plastic volume knobs feel cheap but otherwise, it seems to be a sturdy build.
The manual says it has a class AB output stage. I am assuming some kind of power rail voltage switching is used to keep power consumption generally low but I have not confirmed this.
For my testing, I used a 4 ohm dummy load and balanced XLR inputs. Let's get into measurements and see how she did.
EDIT: the first revision of this review had tested the A500 with the input switch set to bridged. It has now been updated in proper stereo mode.
Measurements
Let's start with our dashboard:
View attachment 17176
Even though I was using balanced input and outputs from the amplifier, we see large contributions from noise from the power supply in the form of 120 Hz and multiple harmonics.
The harmonic distortion is quite high too with distortion spikes seemingly going on forever. So even if the power supply was 100% quiet, it would likely still not get better distortion/sinad rating. A dismal showing regardless, underperforming good DACs by whopping 40 db!
Signal to noise ratio is rated at 100 and I get numbers reasonably close to it:
View attachment 17171
Here is distortion versus power:
View attachment 17177
Sad to see a class AB amp not be able to outdo the switching amp in the Topping TP60 with respect to distortion and noise where the two overlap.
Thankfully the Behringer A500 has copious amount of power, producing nearly 170 watts prior to clipping. Behringer's rating is 180 watts at 1% distortion which seems like an honest rating.
Frequency response is OK but not as flat as it should be for a power amp in the audible range:
View attachment 17173
If there is rail supply switching, then it likely has an output filter to get rid of switching noise from that and as a result, start to roll off the response as we see above.
I think we have a good picture of A500 performance so let's not torture ourselves anymore.
Conclusions
We seem to have a stream of bad luck with bargain amplifiers. Sure, they provide exceptional value in how little they charge per watt. I know I can't make and ship the empty case of this amplifier for $199. But still, we want good distortion specs that rise up at least to some of the worst DACs we have ever tested. Heck, these numbers are no better than some analog formats!
Given the high distortion levels and somewhat uneven frequency response, I can't recommend the Behringer 500. If you just want loud amplification, then you do have a bargain here.
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As always, any questions, concerns, comments, corrections, etc. are welcome.
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