Help needed re: tube vocal preamp

[wezmac]

Hi, please can I have more honest opinion's about this preamp, is it made of cheap parts? will it make our vocals sound a bit better? we need a half decent preamp that doesn't cost the earth but is better than the so called under £100 paperweight preamp that I have been told to avoid. I like the idea that its also a tube compressor, but there are no proper reviews out there.

heres what it says

ICON REOTUBE COM 16, TUBE MIC PREAMP
Fully automatic and manual compression functions
Interactive knee adoption circuit for hard/soft compression
Vacuum tube circuitry for a **** sound with no unwanted noise, hum or hiss
Large, backlit VU meter
16 compression presets
Attack/Ratio/Saturation/Threshold/Release for “Manual” adjustment
Balanced XLR and TRS input and output
Rugged aluminum construction and adopted ICON’s Reo series racking system

 

[Jim Lad]

Is that "Presets" I'm seeing.
Presonus did the same thing with their Comp 16 and I think that's a marvelous idea.
Looks like this is similar.
It's going to cost you about twice that much for a Joe Meek 3Q or anything else as good.
So it's up to you.
It's entry level but not cheap.

 

[Scotti]

looks cool, buy 2 for stereo miking. ART have some good stuff.