I bought the MS mic kit, inventoried the parts when I got it and everything is there. I haven't had the time to build it yet. Trying to wrap up one more song for my latest project and then I'll build it. But it's good quality and the parts were all there. I talked with them on the phone about one modification in the design they'd made before it shipped and they were very responsive.

Haven't heard the mic pre yet so I can't comment on it. I've heard the MS mic before though and it's actually a decent quality signal.

cool...

Thanks for sharing your experience! I'm probably going to pick up a pair of the tube mic pre's in the next few months. I think they were charging $130 for two pre's, plus another $30 for the rackmount case for two channels. So $160 plus shipping for two channels of tube pre? I want to try them, but it sounds too good to be true! Maybe I'll get one channel and build it to see how good it is before getting the other and the case. Then I'd only be out about $70.

JLM audio and Seventh Circle have mic-pre kits.
not Tubed pres but still kits.
Are the Hamptone kits still available ?
Scott had both a FET and a Tubed mic-pre

... and countless DIY tubed pres are on the net ... but not specifically kits

I've nothing much in the way of advice, just a comment:

Wow -- still around, are they? Back in the early to mid-1970s I wanted so badly to have enough money to build one of their mini-modular systems! Never did though. So I went with scratch-built and ended up with a mess that never worked right, sounded pretty wretched, and was guaranteed close to 100% incompatible with just about everything else on the market. But it was fun, and I learned a lot.

It's good to learn that good old Paia [capitalize to taste] are still in business. Reassuring.

still around!

Yeah, and they still sell Theremin kits too!

Back in the 70's I built a synth from a Paia it was a breeze keep us informed how the pre kit is