Joe Meek VC3.

I bought this because it sounded harmonically rich when I plugged it in to my old PA.

In the studio I AB'd it with several other Pre's, and it flunked out. This said, it’s a cool box. The enhance function is cool. The compressor is interesting but flaky. Seems to have a not-so-smooth knee. The compression jumps all over the place. Soft knee does indeed have an important place, but this knee is soft but crooked. Its hard to control, and slow. .. and way not transparent. That can be a nice “effect” – but not a day to day tool. It does work nicely for vocals.

The "eq" is the "enhance" function that supposedly adds good sounding harmonics back - accentuating them. Note the tube doesn't do this.

The harmonics are good sounding. So, bravo. But the fact that you have to add them back in just to make it sound as good as a good preamp is bothersome. Also, there's a lot of hiss that goes with adding harmonics back in. Maybe their more expensive models sound better - but I'm selling mine to a guy with a 4 track. . and it will help him. Where you gonna get an opto, tube, harmonic generation, and a preamp for 150 bucks? Nowhere. It’s a good deal. Just don't confuse it with the good stuff. By the way, the pre's in my Mackie board sounded much better. The pre's in my Alesis studio 12R were better too - without the "enhance". Tedrank ***. For 100 bucks on Ebay, you got a flexible pre and compressor for the money. Its quirky, but fun and musical.