I didn't want to drill holes in my 30 year old Ovation. I installed an under the saddle baggs and bought this preamp to go with it. The unit works very well. I am using it in the studio on an upcoming C D and couldn't be more pleased. I would highly recommend it for an outboard unit. Excellent on the road too. Smooth and simple to operate.

I was having to fight with the settings on the board to get any appreciable tone out of my Fishman M200 equipped mandolin, the sound was fine, just not as great as I thought it should have been...then a friend let me try his 'little box' during a gig. It made all the difference! I went out and bought one the next day. You'll have to tweak it to get it right for you and your setup, but thanks to a basic EQ, and onboard brilliance slider and volume controls, you'll have it dialed out in no time. I recommend this especially if you have a piezo pickup on a violin or mandolin, you know the troubles there, crank it up enough to get heard, and you end up all harsh with tons of feedback. The Pro EQ II will liven up that meek little pick up and let you be heard! I have had mine for well over a year, and only had to change out the batteries once, I play twice a week, for about three hours a night, and the battery usage is neglible compared to my other hardware. Now all I need is the Fishman Loudbox to complete the setup...maybe next Christmas...HA!

I'd have to say that this is an excellent little preamp for the money! Beats out buying an acoustic amp (although for serious players like myself it's always good to have one!) It's got all the basic preamp features..good solid output/signal. I would not buy a passive preamp system on a guitar w/out knowing that I could get one of these!

I initially bought this to preamp an old acoustic guitar I had that only had a simple under-saddle p/up. I used it gigging for about a year that way and always had good success with it. It's basically like taking the Fishman sliders from the nook of any A/E cutaway guitar and moving it outboard so you don't have to carve out a hole in your guitar to install it. Works great.

Lately, though, I've been using it as a preamp for my BASS guitar. I'm primarily a bassist, and have a squeaky-clean SWR-driven rig and wanted to 'warm up' the tone a bit. Wow - even though it's not designed for it, the little Fishman does a stellar job. It has a 'sub-bass' pot-screw adjuster on the back of it. Between cranking that full-on, adding just a touch of the normal bass slider, keeping the mids flat, and cranking the treble and presence almost full-on. I've stumbled across a VERY nice tone producer.

I'm not sure how different an acoustic guitar preamp is from a bass guitar preamp, but if I never came across a better sounding preamp, I'd be happy. It really does sound good.

The only negative aspect I feel this preamp has is the flimsy plastic housing. I KNOW is saves weight, and no doubt cost. But I get nervous about it for the long haul. Knock on wood, so far it's held up well and I've had no troubles with it. It seems to give good battery life. I can gig probably 30, 40 hours or more (about 6-8 weeks @ 2 gigs per week) on a single 9V battery. I wish it did have a low batt indicator, though, as its only warning is to give a diminished, highly distorted signal to the amp when the battery finally does die. Not a good thing in the middle of a gig.