I not sure about the Behringers, I have heard a lot of people bashing them for a wide variety of reasons.If you go to the BBS at http://www.homerecording.com you will see what I mean.

I have never had a problem with there kit my self and they are probably 800% better than headphones. I have gone the rout of active bi amplified speakers. This eliminates distortion resulting from bad crossover however as I said in the other post the acoustics of your listening environment will also color your sound as well as the positioning of your speakers.

I would defiantly go the rout of the near field monitor and Id also not get the cheapest thing out there (like the Behringers). Mixing is a VERY important part of the recoding process and with s*ity speakers you are only making your life more complicated.

There is an old recording engineer adage, garbage in garbage out. I don’t actually believe this as with the invention of things like Autotune3 (a program that lets you correct pitch in the mix) and SOMAR / Protools / cubase (all of which allow you to fix timing) you can make a silk purse out of a sows ear if you need to (this is the studio magic that has propelled talentless idiots to fame and fortune don’t need to mention names !). However the better your starting material the easier your job as an engineer will be. What am I trying to say, it is possible to get a good result with cheap cr*ppy kit but t is much easier (and IMHO more fun) with nice tools at your fingertips and if you choose wisely this doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Good monitors are an absolute essential and Id get the best set of nearfield, flat response. Bi- amplified active speakers you can afford.

I’m using Alesis M1 Active Mk2s ($400) and they are OK. In my own case the current rate limit is the acoustics of the room I’m mixing in and as I’m going to move back to the UK in the next year or so I’m not going to do any thing about it. However as I know the frequencies that are troublesome I can compensate for loud / quiet spots when I’m mixing so that my final mix sounds good where ever it is played and on what ever it is played on !