Behringer PRE-Q components (original German-built model)

[rascalseven]

Anyone familiar with the Behringer "PRE-Q" (model MIC 502) mic preamp?  This was a friend of mine's first "good" preamp, purchased new in early-mid 1990's.  

Made in Germany, not China.  He dropped it off to me, because one side has much lower gain than the other.  The construction is nice.  Nice, European-looking pcb, parts laid out in nice rows, like little military formations... very tidy -- reminds me of something SPL might have made.

Anyone have documentation on this?  It doesn't seem to be a particularly stellar preamp (compared to lots of the nice DIY going on here anyway), but the feature set is useful (has a sweepable, defeatable HPF, for example), and some of the IC's look as if they have had their original markings buffed off and restamped with a Behringer part number.  Each channel uses the SSM2017 and what looks like a TL074 (though it now reads 'BEHRINGER BE037 4002B") and an 8DIP IC now labeled "BEHR. BE027 3005B" (maybe a renamed 5532/4?).  

The Behringer part designations seem to follow a similar designation scheme (chronological, maybe?), because they're similar.  I just wonder why they felt the need to hide the original designations.  Is there really some magic they want to conceal in a unit that has uses a 2017 as the front end?

I may trace the circuit -- I'm wondering what to replace these "Behringer" IC's with if they turn out to be part of the problem??

Any info is greatly appreciated! 

Peace,

JC

 

[tchgtr]

Hi JC,
    I have one of these, and the owners manual, but no schemo.
    It's nice to have if you need a stereo direct box, and I noticed that they had used bi-polar electros in the signal path.
It started putting out 98V on the phantom power a while back, and I can't figure out why. That's why mine has mainly been relegated to DI.
With all the stuff I've learned on this forum, I should open it up again.

Jim

 

[kooma]

I think schemas are in gmail

 

[rascalseven]

Beautiful, thank you!

So any idea what the BE027 and BE037 IC's are?  I was thinking the 037 was a TL074, but it drives an optional output trafo, which seems a bit unlikely to me.  ???

Anyone know?

Thanks so much

JC 

 

[Andy Peters]

Beautiful, thank you!

So any idea what the BE027 and BE037 IC's are?  I was thinking the 037 was a TL074, but it drives an optional output trafo, which seems a bit unlikely to me.   ???

OP27 and OP37? OPA27 and OPA37?

-a

 

[Rob Flinn]

Did you try emailing behringer support ? 

They always gave me the info I asked for !

 

[Rossi]

On some German internet forum, someone said these are relabeled NJM4060 and NJM2058. I think I once saw the NJM4558DX mentioned as a direct replacement for the BE037. Around the time of the MIC502 Behringer advertized their "own" BE027 and BE037 as upgrades for quite a number of opamps, among them models that weren't fully compatible with each other to begin with, such as TL072 and NE5532.

I once replaced the BE037 with an MC33079, but I got slight oscillation problems. I'd suggest leaving them in place, as long as they're not broken. They're probably nothing special, but they do their job okay.

 

[okgb]

i would think berhringer would hide how unspecial they are
not how special they are

 

[rascalseven]

i would think berhringer would hide how unspecial they are
not how special they are

Yeah, perhaps.  Being German-built (very nice construction, actually) I was thinking they might have been trying to do something special (like FMR did with the RNC -- I think they removed designations of some of the IC's).

Thanks for the information.

JC