Is anyone buying pro audio gear anymore? Are music stores actually selling gear these days?

Are you going pro audio green? Is that even possible? 

Auxiliary Spend http://www.soundons…

I've been thinking this was coming for years but so far I'm wrong. The Round Trip is an interesting bit of exposure. What a total gong show of overspending that has been created. G.A.S.

Is anyone familiar with the equipment this company makes?

I'm starting to see their stuff available around here and on the web, but I don't know anything about them. Their stuff is priced very competitively and they can write a compelling sentence.

I was looking at their headphone amplifier.

I have a PreSonus Bluemax compressor, and just got an M-audio DMP3 preamp. This is my front-end (such as it is) for a home DAW setup. I would only be using the Bluemax on vocal tracks. My question is this...do I run the mic ( a Groove Tubes GT1) into the preamp first, then compression? This seems the logical method to me, but I'm not sure.