Sven,

from my limited exposure to the GA preamp (Beagle had one at our shoot out), it follows the neve model w/ an input and output knob, so you can saturate a signal.  I wasn't impressed w/ the saturation so much.  The Tone Beast sounded better, all the way up thro distortion.  The guitarist I was testing w/ (who owns a pro studio here in Dallas) thought it might be an answer to a "crappy guitarist w/ crappy tone on a crappy amp."  He could add it w/ the Tone Beast, and the DI'ed acoustic we shredded did sound pretty electric.

Other than that, most of the setting changes were pretty subtle, tho note that I didn't have a different op-amp in this proto model I was testing.  It had the same op amp as in the WA12 , or an api 2520, which goes in the api 512.  Production models have a cleaner op amp as a choice, and Bryce (the Warm Audio guy) said it sounded a lot differnet.

So, first off it is a good preamp w/ mic and DI on front, as well as a mic and line input on the back.  Handy, esp. for the home studio.  But, on the right signals, you can get all kinds of different textures out of the signal.  Again subtle, but I could hear it at home as well as in a tuned studio. 

It is worth the extra $150 (compared to the WA12) if you like to spend time on that last few percent of sound.  When we first used it we did voice on a 421 from the drum room.  There was no dicernable difference on any setting.  After we turned up the in/out knobs and switched to gutiars, the settings became audible.  It takes a temperment, ear and monitoring system as well as time to take advantage of all the settings.  I can't see using a Tone Beast on every drum mic, unless I was getting paid by the hour.  But lead guitar, rough up some synths and tweak a loud vocals (on a proper mic), yea, it should be worth the time.  I've only had it a couple of weeks, but enough to know it is useful.

Be careful using such a sound generating preamp on your input signals. You might end up with everything you track sounding the same way and the sound is coming from the one device and sometimes that is not desirable.

The great thing about using a clean transparent preamp is you can get that sound when you need it and in any mix it is desirable. Use plugins after the transparent preamp to get the coloured sounds you are after. That way you have got the best of both worlds. There are many out there and they offer all the sounds of warm thick sounding preamps but also many other sounds that even those coloured preamps cannot provide. 

Of course I get the fact you are not hearing an interesting sounding preamp while you track and that might be a factor too. Understand. I would think the ultimate thing is to have both types of pre in your setup so you can use either, don't just limit it to one type only. If it is one type only then transparent in my book is the better choice. Because a transparent recording can be made to sound like anything really but not the other way around. 

Just another approach that is all. 

I work almost the opposite way, Jeff.  I've never found digital substitions to float my boat and prefer analog thickening.  Even amp sims, which are very good, I find aren't as smooth as mic'ed amps - perhaps because I'm not a guitarist - but aren't as controlled as real amps with volume changes.  Different strokes for different folks, as you say.

The point of the Tone Beast is to have thickening or thining.  It is basically an API 312 sytle preamp but you can drop out the output transformer so it more closely follows Focusrite designs still used in the ISA range and others.  You can remove the tantalum capacitors used in Mr. Neve's older designs.  You can switch the op-amp to a cleaner one or keep the api one.  And by keeping the in/outs balanced you don't have to drive the entire system.

Maybe they should have called it a Flexi Beast, but Tone Beast seems better marketing.
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