Feature:
I run the mic direct and then patch into the line in on the mixer. The gate, compressor, & desser work great. Also, the enhancers really do add a certain sheen to your live vocals. A great piece. You don't really need an eq, leave that on your mixer channel (providing you have at least 4 bands and 2 are parametric)

Quality:
Not terribly pretty, but built well. The knobs have a solid feel. Top notch!

Value:
Before you consider buying a new mixer or expensive microphone, learn to use a 286, it may make you reconsider!

Desirability:
After using it, my respect grows and grows. I would buy it in a minute for my live work, but would seek out something else for my digital studio work. I don't use compression, gating, EQ, or dessing before I go into my computer. Once its there, I can't change it, so I do it all within the software or repatch and record again through the effect so nothing is too permanent.

Sound:
As an engineer I use 4 of these regularly. There is such a difference between the microphones and vocals with and without it. In live audio the 286 puts you in control. Great features and full on wonderful sound.

Support:
Never needed them

This is really a great unit. Very useful in every way. The compression is nice and natural sounding, the enhancer improves the tone, but I expecially like the gate/expander. It sounds very natural using my Crown headset mic. I set it at 2:1 to get just enough downward expansion so that my breathing is quieter, but not altogether gone. I tried the Rolls CL151, which sounded okay, but the gate was terrible, always opening too late. But the dbx is just right. It also has a de-esser, but I haven't had to use it yet. Hmmm, I wonder how that new ProVocal is going to compare with this?!

This unit provides excellent sound and value.
Home recordists benefit greatly from a quality
pre-amp. I'm personally not a tube guy, and
the sound improvement I got from adding the
286a was more than noticable - it was dramatic.
The noise gate function saves hours of cleaning
up dirty tracks, and the amp is pure & clean.
For the money, this is one of the best buys
in mic pre's today.

I couldn't afford everything I wanted so I bought this instead. It does a fair job and it sounds smooth, but it is noisey. The compressor is a little odd. No threshold or attack settings. Now I'm looking to buy all the stuff I should have to begin with.