i own an MR1k having previously taped with RxR, cassette, pcm-beta, dat and a 671. i have run the korg sans pre with busman mics as well as using a Shure FP33 and Sony DMX-P01 mixers. i just taped a Banyan Show (Mike Watt - fIREHOSE, Porno for Pyros, Iggy Pop and the Stooges , Nels Cline - Wilco, and Stephen Perkins - jane's addiction) where the house was LOUD. 2x busmans w/ wide cards and 1x AKG 463 > Sony mixer > line in > Korg. gain was set to LOW, Limiter OFF, all levels peaking at ZERO. no distortion from the korg pre's.
last time i taped the same lineup, i ran the busmans directly into the Korg and ran the levels hard and again got an undistorted tape w/ amazing sound quality.
all in all, i am getting some great tapes with this unit stock. however i have not run all my mics into the pre's...
so i concur with Rick Z, it depends on your mics.
neil