I was looking for a way to send my guitar to two amps. This pedal can do that, but I find myself leaving it bypassed most of the time because, like the reviewer before me said, this thing become unmanageable pretty quickly. The first one that arrived had an extra hissy left channel, but Musician's Friend replaced it without incident. The second one, however, had an only slightly less hissy left channel. That "quiet and transparent" part of the description is using a bit of liberty. Linking the two channels together sounded cool on paper, but the volume and overdrive settings have a really narrow usable range of adjustment with it configured this way. That said, the right channel can be useful, but I still hear the tone suck in the left one when playing in stereo. So sometimes I have both amps connected but just roll the left channel back to 0 when on. In my opinion, stereo amplification with the preamps bypassed is this pedal's most useful setting.

At best the LPB-2ube will slightly increase your volume and thicken (if not muddy) your existing tone. This is achieved with all setting at 12 O'Clock and the input level on low. On average it will add unwanted hiss and noise and suck tone like an old school Boss NF-1 set on max if you go beyond those positions.

Worst cast scenario (and it's not all that hard to dial in) you will end up with a heap of feedback and squall that would make a My Bloody Valentine fan blush.

Save your time and money and buy a BBE Sonic Stomp if you are playing solid state and looking to liven up your tone.

I use this with my Blues Jr and 65 Deluxe Reverb in stereo with ho attenuators with both cranked and omg the tone is incredible almost otherworldy. It took a few minutes to adjust my ears after using the crappy in comparison solid state boss brand overdrive for so long. super wide headroom. A lot of players don't understand how to get killer distortion and think that these amps are for blues only. One word: WRONG. Putting another preamp in series with another preamp creates some amazing timbral depth, nuance and comlexity. Hendrix found out about twin reverbs cranked a long time ago.

I bought this after reading reviews about how it adds warmth to your sound. Well, let me tell you that this is absolutely true. If you run both sides in series, and experiment with the gain knobs, you WILL find a natural, even order harmonic distortion sound that you like.

Maxing the right side and turning the left about a quarter of the way up will yield an ENTIRELY different sound than the vice versa setting will. It pays to spend an hour or two experimenting.

I realize this is a preamp and not a distortion effect, but used as such this thing will SLAY a lot of the distortion pedals out there.

It makes a run-of-the-mill solid state amp sound really awesome; you can tweak this thing to sound like anything, from crystalline bliss to satanic raunch. it makes a tube amp indescribable.

By the way, I can't stand poseurs who try to sound sophisticated by using words like "warmth" and "shimmer", but damned if they don't fit the bill describing this product.

Bottom line: If you have pretty good gear, but just can't seem to get your sound dialed in exactly like you want, run this in your rig (both channels in series-you need an extra patch cable). One more thing: if your guitars all sound the same through your current rig, something is wrong. Vacuum tube preamps allow a guitar's true individual character to shine through.

Try it out, if you don't like it, return it. I bet you'll keep it! by the way, I am the first to admit EHX (like Gibson) is overpriced. But occasionally, you get what you pay for. This is one such case.

This pretty spendy pedal doesnt have a lot of features , it has just good old fashion " if i turn up the volume loud enough i wonder how crazy itll sound" metality behind it. It does what tubes ended up being used for. It has the standard valve sound useing just one of the two channels together , nice and clear with a touch of warm tube wavering, analog signal, not the digital binary on and off wave form but a flowing one , I tend to leave the two channels chained together just send the line in into one then the out back into the other in and it uses both tubes together wich allows u to drive the second tube into total saturation.

There is two drive knobs which u notice a mild overdrive be itself when set to max but sending it in to the right channel and out then to the left and then out to the amp u can adjust the drives together that gets some really nice old fasion almost static like breakup or really old classin guitar from the 50's 60's like breakup. And if u want it even more intense u just turn up the right channel volume to really push the left and it gets pretty crazy at that point. It can drive really hard by itself but u can also use other pedals goin in to drive the right tube before the left ... boosts work crazy to over drive the tubes... Im thinking about getting two so I can use one for mild overdrive and clean sounds and then kick on another for pushing it ...

It really does stick to an older sound , im really into low fi and atmospheric rock with noise. But it honestly improves any over drive or distortion sound u currently have , it adds an extra ammount of color and warmth without takeing away any of the origonal sound ... its so great to kick on if you want to make your current driveing sound just a bit more instense without boosting it ... its pretty versitile , like your own simple tube amp.