Radial PZ-PRE

[Ian]

 Anybody ever use /try one of these?? I'm a day or two from pullin the trigger on one, and I was lookin for some opinions.
Thanks.

[cohenj]

I picked one up last week, just ahead of a marathon 6 hour outdoor concert.  My sound mad had complained that my Boss AD-3 was noisy and compressed, so I thought it was a good time for a change. 

I have nothing but good things to say about the PZ-PRE.  I ran my Larrivee D-50 through one channel and my custom rosewood dread through the other.  The sound was warm, clean, open and natural.  Feedback control worked easily and flawlessly, without degrading my tone.  The clean boost worked as advertised and gave me great control for solos.  The Tuner output worked well with my tuner.  There's tons of headroom on this thing.  My only negative comment is that there's no battery power, so you must have AC power in close proximity.  There's I/O for just about every scenario.  I ran the post-eq xlr output to both the mains and the monitor (just my preference), but you can send a pre-eq signal to the board and post-eq to the monitors, if that's your preference.
Incidentally, I have Fishman Matrix pickups in both of my dreads.  Having two switchable channels is a pleasure.

Bottom line is that I'd recommend this as a really serious piece of gear, and possibly that last preamp/di you'll ever need.

Jeff