Behringer P16-M Review: Sixteen Mixes, and the Price Is Not $209

Wireless in-ear monitoring has a cost per mix that never falls. Every new mix is another transmitter, another coordinated UHF frequency and another item competing with your microphones for spectrum that keeps shrinking. A church at four mixes has a manageable system. The same church at eight mixes is running eight monitor frequencies plus six microphone frequencies, and has reached a genuine ceiling that no amount of budget removes.

A wired personal mixer has no such ceiling. The signal travels on Cat5, so adding a ninth musician costs one mixer and one cable and consumes no spectrum whatsoever. It also removes the battery problem entirely, which over a year of weekly services is a real recurring saving. The trade is a cable to each position, which on a fixed church platform is rarely the obstacle it sounds like. The full argument is at wireless in-ears versus wired personal mixers.

The second benefit is control. Sixteen channels at the musician’s own position means the drummer builds their own balance instead of asking the sound operator for more kick between songs. That removes an entire category of Sunday morning friction, and it is the reason churches that adopt personal mixers rarely go back.

This is the table the $209 sticker price hides. A six position system is the realistic church deployment.

A P16-M on its own does nothing. It needs a source of sixteen ULTRANET channels, which means a console with the appropriate output card or a compatible stage box, and it needs the P16-D distributor at $139.00 to split that feed to multiple positions and send power down the same cable. Below three positions you can chain without the distributor; at six positions you need it, and it is not optional.

Then there are earphones. A personal mixer with poor earphones fails for exactly the reason a cheap in-ear bundle fails: without isolation the musician turns up to compete with the room. Budget SE215 earphones at $119.00 per position or accept that the system will not make your platform quieter. Add it up and a six position system is close to $1,400 before earphones and before cable, which is still excellent value per mix and is not $209.

The second honest limitation is the headphone amplifier in the P16-M itself, which owners describe as the weak point. Behringer’s own answer is the P16-HQ at $203.99, the current revision with a better headphone stage at essentially the same price. For a new system, buy the HQ. The P16-M remains the right purchase only when you are adding a position to an existing P16-M installation.

Published owner reviews consistently praise two things: the freedom from frequency coordination, which churches running many wireless microphones raise repeatedly, and the reduction in monitor requests during a service once musicians control their own balance. Reliability of the wired link is rarely questioned, which is the expected result of moving audio off radio and onto cable.

The recurring criticisms are the headphone amplifier level, which owners describe as insufficient for some earphones and which the HQ revision addresses, and the small physical controls, which several owners note are hard to adjust quickly in low platform lighting. A third theme is initial setup complexity, since the ULTRANET source, the distributor and the cabling all have to be right before anything works at all.

Buy this instead for a new system, because it is the same price: the P16-HQ at $203.99 is the current revision with the improved headphone amplifier, which is the one component owners actually complain about. There is no reason to specify the older unit for a fresh installation.

Budget pick, because a fixed position does not need sixteen channels: the Powerplay P1 at $55.90 is a wired personal monitor amplifier with a limiter for a position that never moves, such as the drum stool or the keyboard. It takes an aux send rather than a network feed, so it works with any console.

Wireless alternative, because mobility sometimes wins: the Shure PSM300 with SE215 earphones at $989.00 is the right answer for a worship leader who moves around the platform and cannot be tethered. Many churches run both: wireless for the front line, wired mixers for the rhythm section. Reviewed at the PSM300 review.

Buy a Powerplay system if you need six or more monitor mixes, if your UHF spectrum is already full of microphones, or if your musicians sit in fixed positions. Buy it if the recurring cost of batteries and the recurring labour of frequency coordination have become the tech team’s main burden. The category is covered in personal monitor mixers.

Do not buy it for two mixes, where a pair of aux fed wedges or a single wireless system is simpler and cheaper. Do not buy it for a musician who must move, and do not buy it without earphones in the same purchase order. If you are still deciding whether in-ears suit your team at all, spend forty dollars on a P2 first and find out, then read how to set up in-ear monitors in church.