well... my prediction was right! It is almost 3 am and I have been playing with this meter (beachtec svu-2) for about 4 hours. Here is the low down:
The case is very nice the knob feels solid. Overall the unit appears to be built like a tank. The "fit and finish" is good but not great. The calibration knobs are not quite centered in their openings, but otherwise seems ok for the price. The meters are very active and even though they bounce quite a bit I think they will be wonderful to read in a dark club or a bright outdoor venue.
I will run it off the line out from my jb3 vs from the ua-5. I thought that the knob controlled outputs from the ua-5 left room for error. The output of the jb3 is a lower level however and with the svu-2 calibrated with the right side maxed, and the left side a tiny bit back (my final setting) produced a -o- db reading with the peak light flickering on the ua-5, and anything over +3 db overdrives the jb3, and clips the ua-5.
I first started testing with music off my home stereo, then eventually went to a few test tones with ballance to one speaker and the mics symetricaly placed directly in front of the active speaker. The final test tones I recorded (wht noise and 440 hz tone) were within 2% between left and right chanels. I think I got it where I want it. Hopefully is Karl Denson doesn't decide that the almighty dollar is better than the taper fans that got him where he is next tuesday, I will be able to administer the final test.
As for the headphone amp. It is loud... far louder than the edirol amp. Much cleaner as well. This should be a benefit in the field as well. The thing I didn't like was that the calibration controll adjusted the headphone amp as well as the vu's. Overall I think the unit was a good investment for me.
The unit is powered by a typical 9v internal battery. It doesn't have the typical connection, but instead has a little spring loaded tray that the battery slides in with the contacts exposed, then when you push the tray in, the contacts on the battery touch flat contacts inside the unit. I made a little adaptor to conect to my ua-5 batterys, and that was fairly easy to do.
Thats it, any questions... let me know!
Matt