ART stuff is entry level to mid-range. The budget art stuff is pretty much just that, budget gear. As bluebear said, cheap tube tech does not give you expensive tube sound. Tube and toob... two very different types of gear!
It's been argued that a lot of good recordings is what you do with the gear. I'm sure you can get decent, quite probably even good sounds, with a $150 dollar pre. But do NOT expect it to give you the same performance as something that's priced at 4 or 5 times that.
I've used a VLA Pro compressor during some recordings not long ago. The higher end stuff (if you can call it that, given the price ranging) is very good quality for what you pay. I'm planning on getting the VLA Pro down the road.
But if you want quality mic pres from ART, I'd start looking at the MPA Gold or its digital counterpart. But those could set you back $400 or $500, money which may be better spent on gear thats going to give you more character to your recordings, if you so desire. The MPA equipment, imho, while not totally transparent, is fairly cold. It doesn't 'warm' things up as much as other gear.
But for $400/$500, i think there are probably better pres out there to start off with.
The golden rule is you'll get what you pay for. Buy lower end stuff, you'll end up with a lower end piece of hardware. A $500 car is gonna run like a $500 car...
There's still a lot you can do with it, and for starting out with, or experimenting, whatever, $200 or so isn't a lot of money comparatively, so it may be worth it to see how you like it, how it works for you, if you like it, etc.
buy from MusiciansFriend, you get 45 days to make up your mind. I like that.
And for future reference, the search function on the board gives you very good results for many questions which have been asked before. Try punching in models or equipment you're looking at, seeing what comes back. More than likely, someone's already put up "This is SUCH A GREAT BARGAINOMGLOLZ!!!one" or "d00d...this is crap. i'm taking it back."
