Level,
I'm an amateur who tries to buy the best stuff that I can afford. And for me, who had nothing but the preamps in my machine (Yammy AW2816) and a Mackie 1202, this unit is incredible. I have a TLM-103 that I used to have to crank up so much that noise of my machine was very audible and with this guy, I can set the trim level so that I dont hear that noise at all. And the mic sounds so much better. Same with my KSM-44. I have to be carefull with my SM-81 as it puts out a much hotter signal, so I drop the gain down a bit.
So, from an amateurs prospective, this thing is great.
Rick