re: eating the mic, that's why God invented Popper Stoppers. Even genuine idiot singers know that they're in a "real serious studio" when the popper stopper is up. Amazing, but true.
If your questions is whether to use 9V batteries or phantom power from the Behringer or buy a cheap mic pre, I'd say use the 48v from the behringer. You'll protect your session from sudden battery crapout, and I think you'll get better signal with 48v.
The mic pres in the behringer are probably...
I like my ACP88. The scale markings around the controls are kind of hard to read, but I don't usually set by the numbers anyhow, more by ear.
Quite transparent, separate insert points for gate key and sidechain. Balanced ins and outs. No wall wart. Channels are linkable up to all 8 linked...
If you can go for 200 bucks, check out the RNC (really nice compressor) from FMR Audio.
I've seen the pro's calling it a really good value, and these are guys who are having discussions of Cranesong vs Langevin preamps.
Silent, I've got the AP brand (same as Re-An only less price for some reason). Works fine for me.
It is selectable between half normalled and denormalled, and can be multed with another set of points by patching 2 modules together.
Normalling explanation:
Assume that you have brought a mixer...