I was a little dubious about it at first, considering the price, minimal feature, and honestly bought it as a low-cost experiment to see how it would work. I can honestly say that I couldn't be happier! As a pre-amp for a dynamic mic, this little unit works amazingly well. Vocals sound warm and natural and you get that "right in front of you" punch that brings vocals to the front of a mix. As a guitar pre-amp, I love it! It really warms up and richens the sound of my Strat (I have vintage Tex-Mex pickups which can get a bit twangy at times), and with my ES-335, it helps balance out the sound without removing the low-end crunch that I like. In either case, turning up the drive produces a very nice, smooth distortion that doesn't turn into a wash if doing quick chord changes.

There's not much to this unit, but there's not supposed to be, and that's the beauty of it. I do have to say that the meter is practically useless when used with a guitar in small-venue, low volume applications. Even at low gain settings, the TUBEPre really packs a punch, so I don't really rely on the meter for monitoring signal levels in these situations - so I set up my sound simply by listening to get the levels on the unit and my amp dialed in. As far as other features are concerned, thank goodness for the pad and 80kHz filter! My home studio is in my garage and I've got a noisy computer, a freezer and the water heater there. The filter works very well in filtering background noise, and the pad really allows me to use my volume knobs on my guitars!

Four buttons, two knobs... How much easier can it get? I'm amazed that some people have had problems with noise. I must be lucky, but it's possible that they've set up their levels weird. Going on a recommendation that I read, set up your Gain first with tube drive dialed all the way down. Then introduce more voltage to the tube to achieve whatever warmness (or drive/overdrive) you want. Especially if you're going into an amp, there's a balance you have to achieve between the pre and the amp. It's not something you're going to solve right away. You have to a do a bit of tweaking, no matter what product you get.

Absolutely no problems with quality. The unit is well-made and the blue, brushed aluminum body looks really slick. Some people have mentioned getting a bad tube out of the box, but I haven't had a problem yet. I guess I'm one of the fortunate.

This is a great value. For under $100 you can't find anything better.

Haven't had to use them yet...

As I mentioned above, this unit looks slick. It's got sort of a retro control face, and a beautiful blue brushed aluminum body. It's also very sturdy. I'm going to buy a couple more so I can dedicate them to particular applications. I'm also going to try using different tubes than the stock ones as some have suggested to see what kinds of sounds I can produce.

Active Musician, Home Recording Hobbyist

All sorts from Classical to Rock

Definently warmth from the tube, and useable overdrive. absolutely beautiful sound.

This is not a feature-rch device, nor is it supposed to be. 2 pushbuttons are mislabeled! There is no mute button (tried 2 separate units, they were the same).

plug and go.

Sturdy case. Knobs stick out a bit, but feel smooth, mostly. Drive knob scratches at 9:00 o'clock. A touch of hiss if you've yanked both gain + drive, but if used right it's not an issue. It is not truly a 1/3 rack unit, but just a touch wider. you can't rack 3 together on a tray. :-(

To warm up my instrument mic, this device is outstanding.

active musician

rock, jazz, ccm

Warm, clear sound using AT3060 tube mic for recording vocals. Works great with the Mbox's line-in, and adds warmth that the Mbox Focusrite preamps lack. Very close warmth and clarity to that of the dbx 386, which I own.

It has drive, gain, phase, pad, phantom, XLR I/O, 1/4" TS I/O. The 80hz cut and VU meter are useful features. What else does a single channel preamp need?

I only used this item once for a pro session, and plan to use it for every session. Thus far, I cannot report on longevity, but reliability seems to be intact. Unfortunately, upon arrival there was a loose part inside the unit itself. I opened it and found a small piece of plain circuit board material. It looks as if it was an extranneous part that inspection didn't catch. No damage that I can see, and the unit works perfectly.

I think it's the most "pro" unit of its type in the price range.

It looks great! Nice blue front finish, and eye-catching VU meter. My only two trite gripes are that I wish the sides were flat and the knobs shorter for easier packing. After all, this unit is designed for transport.

Acoustic

Over the past year, I have bought pretty much one of every make of cheap preamp out there, including this one. How does it rate? For the price, I would say it is not that great. But, if you don't want to change a tube, then this unit is for you. Of all the units I have tried, this is the only one that I could not get to sound better using another tube. The Chinese tube in it is in a weird sort of way well matched to the circuitry. That said, the sound is limited. It will sound ok on certain kinds of mics and vocals, yes, but for other applications it will seem thin. It is fairly bright, and the gain & drive are both very 'hot' meaning that a person can easily overdrive the unit. (The meter is not much use.)

Basic features. The phase reverse is not very good and puts the phase just out of phase, more than anything. The meter is not much use.

Easy to use, but the meter and the very hot controls make it touchy to set up,and you have to do that mostly by ear.

I opened it up and was not impressed. Very basic circuitry and cheap small components.

I think this unit is over-priced. The lower priced Art products are competitive, and they will sound better if you swap out their tubes. This unit sounds probably better off the shelf, but doesn't improve much with other tubes. The internal components are not high quality.

Haven't had to use it.

It looks pretty good.

lifelong amateur musician

jazz

Music Producer, Engineer, Artist

Hip-Hop, Rap, R&B, Pop

The sound is ok. It has hiss when using a condenser mic at the proper range. It does sound better when it has time to warm up. It is excelent for guitar though. I still use it for vocals and still get a great sound but when I get a new pre amp I expect a nice increase in quality. I would still recommend this over the equal priced preamps.

Has everything you really need in a pre amp of this level. With the manual you can improve you sound doing some playing with the settings.

Plays like it is suppose to for the price. I have not had any reduction in quality over time.

I got this for $150 and it came with a Marshall MXL 2001 condenser mic.

I think it looks nice but I could do with out the red led that lights up the tube. I like the look of a warm tube.

Amature producer with an experience ear

All kinds

For the price it's the best....if you do use it, the Condensor mics will be the best...Great warm sound!

No Balanced outs, run short cable to board or sound card no longer than 20 feet or less.

Great quality... nice brushed aluminum.

For $100, cant be beat.

N/A as we all know, the cheaper the equiptment the less the Customer Support.

makes your sound warm and 3D....not the transistor flat sound with lack of Tube Harmonics.

Alterntive

The sound was very very muddy and distorted. I had the gain not even at the nine o'clock placement and was still redlining when I rapped into my microphone. This will NOT improve your sound over the M-Audio Fast Track Pro. It may have just been my unit but this experience has made me hate presonus.

It's a preamp, what do you expect?

Very easy to use, I just kept getting a redlining signal.

Quality seems pretty good, and it seems like it would hold up well.

I wanted it but now I don't.

Recording Engineer/Active Musician

Christian Rap

I have had the Presonus TubePre for years now. I am a professionally classic trained singer with 5 octaves, a pro recording artist. I have sung on AKG, Sterling, Neumann U87 vintage, AT, Sennhieser, CAD, Blue, Shure, Rode from million dollar studios like river city studios to the chump studios.(computer and mic in a bedroom) I have produced many of my artists as well. So my point in saying that is I have heard a lot of setups on a lot of voices. If I were to build my home studio setup again, knowing what I know now, I would not hesitate to buy the TubePre again. I currently have the Presonus BlueTube pre with a GrooveTube 12AX7 tube in it. It's going through a M-Audio 192 Delta Audiophile sound card with a 4core Q9300 processor with 8gb ram memory Hewlett Packard m9550f. I used to have the preamp hooked to a cheap phonic mixer, which since I have removed from my mic path to the computer. Wow, what a difference. Before I removed the mixer, I didn't like the sound of my voice at all with the NT1A, sounded thin and fake. But since I have removed the cheap mixer, I have a smile on my face every time I sing into it. Lesson: take care of the mic path and the crappiest component in your path is the best it is going to sound. I'm going to post two unmastered unmixed samples of me singing a song. The first link is me singing in a million dollar studio with a Neumann U87 40th ann. vintage, Brent Averill 1073, 1176 compressors, Apogee D/A, into a Trident Ventura Board into some 8core Mac Pro in protools 8 HD full. go to soundcloud dot com slash benjamite717 slash the-way-you-look-tonight-cover This second setup is the NT1A hooked into a modified Presonus BlueTube with Mogami Gold cables, going direct into a 192kHz Audiophile Card of my 4 core 8gb HP on Nuendos 4 in an untreated bedroom. I couldnt sing loud because of the people in the next room so it's not the same intensity. go to soundcloud dot com slash benjamite717 slash the-way-you-look-tonight-home OK, now what do you think?

Wish it had a power switch

Super easy to use.

Made very solid. Reliable. Consistent.

With the Tube switched out great value.

No interaction.

Appeal is good, looks great, feels great, sounds great.

playing since 5, classically trained singer, recording artist, producer

Scores, Classical, Vocal, R&B, Soul, Rock, Pop, Ballads

Let me say that this product is worth every penny and more, it really gives a warmth and a 'high end' feel to our vocals that we recorded , it was nothing like before. If your serious about recording at home but you're on a budget, its the best thing you can buy for your condenser mic, it;ll make your mic sound like its more expensive than it is !!!

Simple and to the point a gain and a drive knob ! The fact that it has an oldskool analogue vu meter just rocks !!!

if you're recording in less than optimum conditions you can just hit the 80hz button to filter out ambience noise *which you can do it from the mic also, other than that you have a drive knob a gain knob and thats it really ..so simple !

Looks solid ! and delivers what its made for

Yes Yes Yes worth every penny

havent needed any yet ...

meshes old skool with new slick style

I purchased this hoping for an improvement in quality over the onboard pre's in my firebox and I was not disappointed at all. I compared it with a vocal track I recorded with the later and was instantly gratified with a more up front bigger sound than the onboard pre's in the firebox..... and that was with the drive knob off. It provided a noticeable improvement in gain and headroom as well. Once you dial in the drive knob to 9 or 10 oclock the sound just blooms and thickens even more. I only gave it a 9 because lets be fair.... This is a 100 dollar unit with a wall wart power supply. The noise floor did come up a bit when you added in some drive knob but so long as you don't go past 9 or 10 its not a problem. Its not going to compare to an Avalon or Red preamp but the improvement you get over a stock sound card is indeed notable.

Its nice and simple as I would want. You are likely purchasing this for a quality improvement. Not for bells and whistles so thats where the company put the cost in my opinion.

Point and shoot. Just add the drive knob to taste and you've got usable sounds every time.

Far above average in this price range. Metal knobs are a surprise in this category. My only beef is a lack of insulation on the wire from the power supply. Keep that away from audio cables.

Absolutely no question about as good as a pre you can get for the money. Period.

Not used but Presonus treated me well when my MP20 went down and they dealt with me directly. The replacement they sent was fine.

It looks cool as anything I've owned. The meter isn't very useable but it looks cool. You don't really need it technically speaking. It does let you know its getting input I suppose.

I am using a Rode NT1000 condensor microphone with popper stopper, and putting this setup through it's paces in an a Cubase driven recording studio in a computer system. That classic horrible digital tin like sound could be heard even on high quality settings with my old microphone and no pre-amp. Even at over 48KHz, it was still a problem. My old EV microphone "straight in" through a Quadraverb was too "digital" sounding if you know what I mean. This unit warmed it up, and allowed me to boost the gain. The highs in this system are sweet, and pure, and the high quality microphone combined with this tubed pre-amp unit make it a one two punch combo. It functions as the phantom power as well...did I mention that? Take the jump up from just a phantom power to a warm simple to use tube pre-amp! I use it for flute and vocals, and it is AWESOME!!!

It's dummy proof too! Anyone can run this thing!

Made strong, this is a metal casing, I assume it's aluminium. It looks great!

It costs more than a straight forward phantom power unit, but this is pro-gear like stuff for under the pro-gear price!

It looks like it was made in 1979. It is old retro looking, but I like the analog arm meter on it! I still prefer these kinds of meters.

35 years, semi-pro active musician.

Adds a Nice warm Sound to your Track.

Very Good Quality for the bucks.

Great Quality fot the price...can't go wrong.

Haven't used CS Yet

Nice color and look.