I'm not sure about those High dollar pre's, but seems that the Aphex unit is way out the league among the others you listed. It was wierd to see it listed in the middle of those big boy high dollar pieces.

I hear the Aphex is killer, and goes for 80 bucks on ebay used. It'd be fun to hear how it stacks up against those others.

The Amek Neve has a great EQ which would be the ticket for kick and snare ...

The Drawmer is not really a great pre ... it's an ok comp but not my cuppa' ...

The Hardy M1 is a very good pre ... but I prefer the ones with the Jensen transformer myself ...

Those are the ones I like ...

I'd go the John Hardy(Xfmr or not)...

TG

the drawmer is a bit too 'dirty' (and really noisy) for my taste... no crap but..wouldnt rent it though.. tried the focusrite green only once..nothing special ..bread and butter stuff i thought..i like..putting dots..in between my sentences..

Focusrite Green Pre 2 ch pre - Low end brit, Mackie in a green box.

TL Audio EQ 2 Tube EQ-Pre 2 ch 5 Band EQ w/pre - Always sounded like an ART to me. but is sorta fitting your needs.

Neve Amek 9098 Pre-eq-filter - dual channel british strip, good choice.

Aphex 107-Tubessance 2 ch Tube pre - dunno, could be a cool cheap P.O.S.

Hardy M-1 2 ch - sounds like a high-end boutique clean-pre, for vocals would be great, but may not be the best swiss-army knife of the bunch.

Drawmer 1960 w/pre - Since it's tube probably "colorful", may break up on drums. No EQ kinda takes this one out of the running, plus Kurt don't like it ;) I like the VU's though.

Just my onion,

M.

Oh, I found a site that has some rental prices so you can see if you are indeed getting a fair-market price.

http://www.bennettstudios.com/rentallist.htm

8-)

M.

Drawmer 1960 w/pre - Since it's tube probably "colorful", may break up on drums. No EQ kinda takes this one out of the running, plus Kurt don't like it

( with no dots between the sentences ) I owned a 1960 for a month or two once. As said before it was very noisy as a mic pre. But I purchased it as a compressor. Man that thing really added a lot of squish factor with all the artifacts. I just didn't care for it at all. I ended up trading it in on a Manley EL OP and I never looked back.

Now Drawmer has come out with the Mercenary version 1969 and the single space 1968 ... which I understand are a significant improvement over the original 1960.

1960="I'd like mine without so much RAT in it"

Green= you could do the same with a console channel.

John Hardy Anything=it'll work no matter what

Aphex 107= strangely good

Amek9098=the sound of rock music

TLA=a lot of people down this set of kit...truth is on drums these really shine....you CAN drive them into a nice brown haze and they will retain their structure and clarity....

If you have the budget, rent the last three and find your noise.

Thanks guys.....I think that if I rent a good pre and combine it with a nice mic I'll know if I can stop blaming bad sounds on my preamps. I'm probably going to go with the Amek and the John Hardy.