I have been writing books over at the Techniques forum :) and I figured I had better come over here to discuss preamps since it is hardware.I started to discuss pre amps over there and was getting off base. I love to hear the experiences of others.
 
I read the evaluation on the warm preamp in sos and it seems like a nice unit.Also heard and read good things about the 73. I wish I could twiddle a few knobs on those to see how they sound. A thread like this is very helpful. If there are any manufacturers out there who want an honest evaluation of your gear I would be more than happy to give you my take on it, all you need to do is send me one of whatever it is :)
 
Anyone use older Joe Meek channel strips? They seem to have some solidly built units. There is also the Austrailian company Alctron making the  Alctron MP-100 a LOT like the  UAD 710 Twin Finity .Neither of these pre amps are highly expensive. A quick look at an auction site might discover a real gem.
 
I decided that my main objective for a mic pre amp was mic good mic matching and decent gain. My main rational being that my mic preamps might be leaving something to be desired. I ordered an ART MPA Pro 2. A step or two above the Eureka I think but a little under something like the UAD 710. I'm telling myself it will be the only pre amp for awhile unless something unforseen happens...like taking a gander at an auction site.

Here's a footnote for your next book:
 
"Alctron Electronics Co., Ltd , is located in Ningbo, close to Shanghai in China."*
 
:-)

I am waiting to receive the new BLA B173 this week and am really hoping that I can recommend them, as the price point is really pretty reasonable if it performs as designed.
Should it indeed give us that even order harmonic love, and a ton of life and gain, as touted, we are in for a treat.
The BLA gear in my view is staggering in terms of performance (at least their clocks and converters). I like our Auteur 500 series. The guys at BLA are also complete geeks, and good guys. Check out the loopback tests done of their converters (and others) at gearevu.com

No books today Mike :).... 
 
Here is where I got some of the info on that pre amp.
 
 http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/714017-alctron-mp-100-a.html
 
Hence my confusion the Aussie seller must have been simply a distributor. My bad.
 
 

Starise
 Anyone use older Joe Meek channel strips? They seem to have some solidly built units. There is also the Austrailian company Alctron making the  Alctron MP-100 a LOT like the  UAD 710 Twin Finity .Neither of these pre amps are highly expensive. A quick look at an auction site might discover a real gem.

I don't have one of the older JoeMeek units but I own (not the new version) a JoeMeek Twin Q.  It has a sound of it's own.  I would definitely say colored.  Coming from the stock pres in my Soundcraft M12 mixer, it took some getting used to and some experimentation to figure out what to use it for.  Now, it's pretty much wired to my Fender Pro Jr amp and my Vox AC 15.  You get a nice thick sound with the eq and compression.  I've never used it for voice that I remember.

I also have a Twin Finity (710) and that's my least colored pre at the moment.  Of course, you can dial in the tube on it to get more color.  I wouldn't mind owning a four channel version at all.

That Twin is Q a very class looking act there Dave. The reason I asked about it is because the newer models apparently are not made the same since the company was bought out. I wondered how big the difference was. Since I haven't gotten too deep yet into anything colored I'm not sure what I'd be getting myself into. It must be one heckuva nice unit to use for guitar. I'm guessing a little heavy in the mids.
 
The Twin Finity looks like a steal for the capabilities it has and I'll admit to looking at the logo too in making that assumption. It might be my next pre.
 
After spending some time with the MPA PRO 2 yesterday I am happy with my purchase. Plenty of gain. I went out into my interface with XLR at +4 from the MPA . Once I had the gains set correctly there was plenty of good clean gain. I thought it was noisy until I realized that the noise was mainly coming from my headphone amp. Driving it high made it noisy but I never intend to drive it that high which would be too much. As it was I had plenty.
 
I am missing a compressor though. I tried vox and then went direct to try bass. I tried to compress ITB but there was too much delay. If I deactivated my other interface channels I think I could get the latency to a better place. The MPA really does well on bass and vox, but I did have to be careful going in not to go in too hot. For bass a simple compressor pedal would work. I didn't really need to compress vox. It would probably work well with any source.Not sure if I'll mod it or not. If it makes a huge difference then maybe I'll drop in tubes, but then I won't know that unless I buy and try the tubes.