Behringer Powerplay P16-I 16-channel Input Module Reviews

I have an 1,800 sf studio installed above my finished shop. We installed the P16 in the studio when we decided to isolate the amps downstairs. We had been using some top of the line GOBO's when we had amps in the room with us but the bleed from the guitars and bass was still too much in to the vocal and drum mics. So downstairs the amps went. When we put everyone in the P16 and allowed them to dial their own mixes on the P16M, the change in recording quality went from great to excellent.

Another advantage we gained with the P16M was allowing the click to be heard (or not) by the entire band. I'm a firm believer that when you have good musicians in the room, the click track makes life, mixing, rehearsing, programming effects, etc., 1000x easier.

Love the P16.

Nice product at a price point that won't break the bank. I just added this and three of the personal mixers to my studio. Easy and quick to set up, no issues whatsoever. The LEDs are nice and bright so it is easy to see channel status from across the room. Has 6 Ethernet ports and can be increased with the expansion unit, or by daisy chaining the mixers. If you daisy chain the mixers, just know that the downstream ones will need to use the included wall wart. PoE is not present on the 'thru' port.

For me adding the P16-I to my studio has been a game changer. I no longer need to spend a lot of time setting up custom headphone mixes in my DAW for each musician. Setup was easy, I used the ADAT outs from my audio interface to connect to the P16-I. From their I connected a few P16-M's. I had no issues with the setup in the DAW or hardware connections. One thing to note. When running fiber, make sure to place it somewhere where it can't be stepped on and no bens in the cable.

I hooked this up to our rack of MOTU equipment, which is fed by direct outputs from our mixer. I was able to hook up the P16-M with just the Ethernet cable, which supplies power to the unit (very convenient). Everything sounds great. Very happy with it!

We use it at school for live recordings in studio. Simple to use and of course cheap for the price. Especially if you start comparing prices with other brands.

We installed this system at our church and it works great. It was easy to install and the features are everything we need. Yes, it would be nice to go wireless, but that is some big bucks compared to what this system costs.

This type of monitoring is not new, what is new is the price, Behringer has brought the capability of MUCH more expensive systems down to the working man, thank you ULI!

We replaced a rather sophisticated analogue mixing system that gave us the similar capability, each person in the band had their own mix, it took a lot of wire and connections to get all those mixers connected.

The first day we got the system I had to do a lot of running around and explaining and helping others learn to mix their own monitor, by the end of the first session everyone was smiling ear to ear because they could finally really hear and tweak the mix the way they want it.

Now the monolith of monitor mixing stuff we've been using is leaving our studio because this little digital Behringer system does everything the former system did and more. We're using it with Carvin stereo in-ear monitors and there is plenty of volume.

This rack mount interface is pretty simple and easy to set up. I put a Behringer patchbay in right above it so it's easy to jack sources into the headphone system. There seems to be plenty of headroom, every channel has signal present and clip indication, it's easy to keep an eye on the system. So far I've never heard it distort or do anything weird.

Thanks Sweetwater, we love it!

This system is great. I've been using Aviom for the last 15 years, and the Behringer is giving it some great competition

Still giving it a 5 star because you CAN NOT beat the price for the system! But I wish the p16-I had 2 outs per channel (it only has 1), I had to do come refiguring because my sound board does not have direct outs and I had to use the inserts from the board with Direct Out Cables to go into the p16-I, which is okay if you aren't using any processing gear or aren't using your inserts for anything. I had to get a 3/4 splitter from radio shack and go from the processing gear's output and one went to the p16-I and the other to the board. But like I said you can't beat the price!!

This is a awesome distribution module!! It actually is capable of more that what they tell you or try to tell you. When talking to everyone, they made it seem like you had to buy the p16-d to daisy chain the p16m(mixers), BUT this P16-I still allows you to daisy chain your mixers through cat-5 cable. Which actually not only lets you control 6 mixers but a whole lot more, I don't know how many mixers you can daisy chain, but you can definitely hook more that just the six up, which save you MONEY! The P16-i works great and the quality in sound is awesome, also the fact that you can "boost" the signal being sent to the mixers is a huge plus!

Great product... great value for money!!!
Does exactly the same as the competition at 1/4 of the price... plug and play. Bought it along with the Presonus 16.4.2 and a couple of DB25-> 1/4" TRS cables -rack mounted and run cables into 16 channels in rear of P16-I.
Supports up to 6 CAT-5 cables out of front to P16-M's - each connection powers a P16-M (but will not daisy-chain on power - only audio).
Very happy with this purchase !!!

Hi,
everything was perfect. I tried to find the P16 (Behringer) in many stores, and the only store that I found was SWEETWATER! You are fantastic!!!!!!!!
The product was delivered before than I was expected.
Best regards,
Marco

We choose to use the P16-M as the best solution for each musician to adjust their own in ear or floor monitor mix. However our large board, and SI Expression 3 was not able to participate, until now. We use the P16-I to feed the 16 channels to the P16-M. Works great and patching it into the system was very straightforward.

I upgraded the headphone distribution system in my studio with this Input Module plus six of the mixers from a standard headphone amp set-up. I love it. No more asking all the artists what everyone needs in their cans. I haven't noticed any latency issues that other people have mentioned. Using this, I was able to get rid of two six-channel headphone amps and my talkback/cue/monitor controller.

I took away a half star for no talkback input. If this system had one analog in (or better yet one simple mic pre) for a talkback, it would be dang near perfect. Now I have to burn an input channel on my interface to use as a talkback. Not a huge deal, but a bummer nonetheless.

This thing works better than I expected and is very convenient. I routed audio from my console and from my DAW to the P16-I for recording drums to prerecorded tracks. I set up theP16-m mixer next to the kit and with a short demo of how it works the drummer was able to get the headphone mix he needed. The sound quality is good and the P16-M interface is easy to use. I needed longer Cat5 cables to reach the drums so I bought a few 25' cat5e cables, plugged them in and everything worked great. Couldn’t be happier with this set up.

Was told by sale that the P16I would feed power to one P16M, then the daisy chain would continue to feed power down the chain. That wasn't the case.

Musicians seem to like it.

Fantastic. Love the fact that you can chain up 6 together. Need a little more headroom. But all in all a great unit! The latency issue though is a little much... Trying to figure that out now.

I purchased this system having experienced it at a previous church: however with our Allen & Heath QU32 sound board we had to do a much more extensive setup than the simple one Ethernet cable that was planned, costing us approximately 500 dollars over our approved budget. Thankfully, SweetWater customer service was excellent and get us situated and on track.
Make sure this system will be compatible with your present system!