Crap ever. First, ART is notorious for having horrible stock tubes. Wasn't expecting much in that department so I bought a JJ 12AX7 and some Tung Sol 12AU7's. I opened it up to find everything had been soldered crooked. Horrible job. I used the Tung Sol's a couple of times and it sounded alright. Added a bit of warmth. But nothing great.Never even got the chance to use the JJ because the thing broke down on me after like the 7th use. Just save up a couple more bucks and get an Electro Harmonix 12AY7 pre.

I picked up a used tube mp for a guitar preamp, and had to swap another tube into it. It was microphonic, and whistled at high output levels. I'm guessing that it had been dropped. I had a Sovtek 12ax7lps on hand, and this fixed it up. I liked it so well that I could no longer resist the howling bargain offered here on the Tube MP Studio, and bought 2. I love them all.

As long as MF is offering the fancier model cheaper than the standard one, the MP Studio is the one to get.

Really now, what are you expecting for the price? Of course you're not going to get point-to-point wired, class A tube preamp construction. Yes, the distortion on it is decidedly solid-state. You're buying a little metal box for this much. Honestly though, this unit can really bring a lot of character to your vocals, especially if you're recording onto a computer. I record into a presonus firepod, and I use it for two things. 1) vocals. They really can breath a lot of life into a low-end mic. I have an MXL 990 that sounds fantastic when the ART preamp is in the chain. 2) guitar. Especially with the presonus, the preamps don't really have enough juice for a 1/4" instrument input, and the ART does a really nice job of boosting it and giving just a little bit of breakup when your push it. If you try to max it out to get guitar distortion, then you're going to hear that it's primarily a solid state preamp with a touch of tube flavor, but what's so bad about that?

I built the Ribbon Mic and the ART Tube MP has plenty of gain and sounds just fine. Not the best mic pre around, but totally adequate for projects. Plenty of input/output options, phase reversal switch, and 20dB pad make this product a great investment. I've been using mine for more than 10 years, and it's still running strong.

After my second use... smoke started coming from the unit! something shorted out. Plus you cant use it on a rack.