You are probably correct in saying that the Brick will not sound the same as the Vipre, but GT is not claiming that it will either. If anything, I think in this case the language they chose was fairly conservative and accurate. It's companies like Behringer that claim high end performance that bother me.
In any case, when companies compare low cost products to high end products, it's usually a pretty transparent strategy. The marketing and hype is easy to see. Also, it's often company A comparing their cheap product to company B's high end product. In this case, the Brick is from the same company as the Vipre and they clearly indicate it is the smaller product of the two.
The actual quote from the GT site is:
"The Brick uses engineering thinking of it's big brother the ViPRE. The ViPRE is now used in many major studios, as has many awards, nominations, and testimonials to it's own credit."
They aren't claiming it sounds the same as the Vipre, and the use of the words "it's big brother" indicates to me that they are clearly designating this the smaller product. I take the statement as simply being a way of saying that the same people designed the Brick as designed the Vipre. All in all, the actual quote seems quite conservative to me, and is buried at the end of a long page of information on the unit.
I understand how marketing hype claims can get a bit annoying after a while, but this particular instance seems so benign that for some reason it doesn't bother me. I suppose I've just gotten immune to being bothered by marketing hype any more.
The other element coming into play on this item is that the Brick so clearly resembles the DITTO that it's lineage is clear. It's not like they made it look like a "mini vipre".
Once again, I just have to say that the DITTO sounds absolutely incredible, it's a great product and I've been very happy with it. So if you need a preamp, don't hold their marketing against them, the Brick is probably worth taking a listen to.
