been turning this question over and over in my mind for a while. ready to upgrade my setup with an outboard channel strip of some stripe. i have a unique workflow. need it for running (mostly) stereo signals into the box. i rarely mic things, most of this will be line level, Ext out from my tube amp or direct out from various rack synths. i rarely record live drums or anything like that.

also i dont want it to be particularly transparent, i def want something that can add air/bloom/saturate/warm.... i have tons of good EQ and compression in the box so while i'd love to get those involved, i would consider something that's just a pre.

Something like the Neve Newton channel is kind of ideal if it was stereo... i aint got the ducats for two of em.

whats worth the money? for this limited application im guessing (hoping?) there might be some unorthodox pieces of bygone gear that might fit the bill...

If you are mostly line level then you don't need a preamp, and if you have all the eq and comp ITB you need, I'm not sure what you are after. Color? The Newton has all the things you said you didn't need: preamp, eq and comp. It will add a type of analog flavor, but I wouldn't spend that kind of cash just for box tone unless I was loaded.

If you are just after saturation and a little bit of dirt, like rough the signal up a bit and add harmonics, I would be looking at things like a pair of 542 or a stereo Density. You could search tape emulator type effects, saturation, and see what people like.

BTW, have you tried comparing a mic signal from your amp speaker versus the "direct out" on your amp? I've used the DO a couple times on a couple amps and it sounded like ass. I could get away with it on a bass amp, but not on the guitar amps I tried it on (for live PA).

The bigwig sausages will wander by and be more help.

we'll see what any bigwigs have to say but both those are actually exactly the sort of thing i was looking for/wondering about, thanks for that....

just might also occasionally need the preamp, even tho its not every day...so would be cool to find something that can do both.

and yeah sometimes i mix in a mic-ed signal from time to time but ive found a weird workflow with the DO from the amp going straight into a cassette deck which sounds pretty great for certain tones actually....like i said, odd workflows...