Do any of these situations sound familiar - you have a great pair of Bose speakers hooked up, but they don't sound quite as satisfying as you just know they should. You hook up a well-designed equalizer between the sound source and the amplifier and... boom! It hits you hard. You have a little practice session going with your band in the garage and the EQ built into the mixer seems to introduce hum into the mix, and anyway, a compact mixer never seems to have much flexibility. So you buy a compact equalizer (even if the sound guy in your band seems a little whiny about all the extra knobs and sliders he's going have to keep track of) and right away, every instrument seems to fit well into the mix and everyone is roundly delighted. For an inexpensive purchase in a sound sculpting tool, Behringer equalizers have been the ultimate choice for ages. For the home sound enthusiast, the Behringer FBQ 800 nine-band graphic EQ is just what the doctor ordered.
When graphic equalizers became inexpensive and affordable about 30 years ago, most people looked at all those cool sliders they could get for the money, and thought of all the joy they could have pushing them all around. The novelty wore off a long time ago though, and today, even people who know what to do with them aren't all that enthusiastic about investing all that time it takes to get a great balance on one of these. The FBQ 800 series of Behringer equalizers then is set up for the audio enthusiast of today - just nine precisely-positioned bands of frequencies, and unlike some of the more elaborate systems you'll find, only one set for both channels of the stereo signal.
The first thing you'll notice about this cute little box is that it doesn't seem like it could stand up to a lot of use. The sliders are a bit jiggly, and the construction overall seems a bit plasticky and slight. But you do realize that the FBQ800 is an equalizer that is custom made for a certain market - it costs less than , and it's supposed to ease you into the art, and not scare you away with too much complexity and cost.
What kind of person is likely to need a cute little 9 band graphic EQ? Basically, Behringer equalizers are made to fit into most audio setups; if you have a small college radio station, and you wish to brighten it up going out, this is that should be well spent between the desk and the transmitter. They need a little extra adjustment for the drummer in your band who seems to have lost the high frequencies in his hearing? This is a great little beast for the job.
Still, as with all purchases in this price point, there are compromises that have been made. To begin with, this is not a constant Q EQ. Any adjustments made to one frequency will spill over to the adjacent ones. This might make it difficult to make any accurate adjustments at all. And also, the user interface is plagued by inconsistent and unclear labeling. But for the price, this is a great buy, as probably all Behringer equalizers are.
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