drewloo, I've used the FMR "Real Nice Preamp" and like it a lot. Its only drawback for me is that it lacks continuously variable gain controls--though some people might consider that an advantage since it makes it easy to match gains between channels.
I've measured its noise performance at typical gain settings (for me), in the 30-40 dB range. At those settings it is one of the quietest preamps I've ever tested. I want to point that out because the spec sheet noise ratings for almost every preamp I've ever seen (including this one) are based on turning the gain all the way up--and in that setting, this preamp falls a few dB short of the best. Their manual even apologizes for that a little, and when the preamp was introduced, people talked about that as if it were a real shortcoming.
I suppose it could be for some specialized applications, but I never set mike preamps to 60+ dB of gain for any actual live recording, and I'll bet most other people here don't, either. It all goes to show that giving just a single signal-to-noise ratio value is pretty useless. What I really want to know is the noise figure of the preamp across its gain range--for each possible gain setting, by how many dB does its actual noise level exceed the theoretical minimum?
The attached graph shows the noise performance of a professional studio console preamp from the 1980s whose manufacturer (Neumann) did show that information. The gain setting (in dB) is shown on the horizontal axis; the corresponding signal-to-noise ratio in dB can be read along the vertical axis, while the noise figure can be seen as the vertical distance between the two diagonal lines at any given gain setting.
I wish other preamp manufacturers would adopt a similar approach. If FMR were to publish a graph for like this for the "Real Nice Preamp," it would show especially good performance in the middle of the gain range, where I think most people are likely to use it.
--best regards
P.S.: The M Audio DMP3 is still shown on their Web site--not exactly what I'd call a rugged preamp, and I don't know how RF-immune it is given the way it's built, but it's nice in other respects, and it has solid enough 48-Volt phantom powering to drive a pair of Schoeps mikes properly.
