At $650 it was a great deal, but I'm not sure it's a bad deal now.
This. It's not as good a deal as it was, but if I was in the market and wanted a super clean amp/adc, it would still make my A-list, but the race is tighter...
Yes, this is very true. The USBPre is an excellent piece of gear. I spent $1500 for my Lunatec V3 new, then spent another $200 to get it opti-modded. With that in mind, $850 for the USBPre doesn't sound bad at all.
My difficulty even in getting the USBPre, which I debated forever, was that my V3 sold on the used market only with batteries/cables is only worth $800-850 it seems. Switching over to a USBPre from a V3 and needing to spend money to do it (shipping of the V3, batteries for the UB2) to me seems hard to swallow as I remain a huge fan of the V3, even though I don't own one anymore.
But for a piece of gear that offers as much as the USBPre does, and with the excellent sound it has, $850 is certainly in the realm of reasonable.