It is what it is. If not for the ground issues (which maybe there's a remedy that I haven't tried yet), these would be great for any situation where you just needed mic preamps with phantom power - like a live 2-track recording or something. Don't expect super quality sound for this price - that's just asking too much. You get what you pay for, it's been proven time and time again.

Sound
I've been testing a pair of C Valves here in my studio, since for whatever reason my church bought four of them, and hardly used them before putting them on the shelf. I got curious about why, but I think it's becoming clear...this is not even passable as pro gear, even though the 24/96 SPDIF out is a nice touch. The tube saturation is not bad sounding, but no matter how I set them I get this contrived "dry signal + tube grit", instead of a nice subtly colored sound. I've also had ground hum issues no matter what I do (ground lift, different circuits, etc). That's not acceptable in my studio! The limiter is a nice feature, and is fine if you want a hard-edged bulldozer of a limiter, but don't expect it to be subtle; It's not.

Features
Has everything a decent mic pre should have: 48v Phantom power, low cut (with selectable frequency), phase invert, even a limiter. The Digital output is nice. I wish it did other frequencies besides 48kHz and 96kHz, as I don't prefer to work in either one of those - 44.1 or 88.2 is my preference.… read more The metering looks cool, but is not very useful. It doesn't seem to reflect what I'm seeing/hearing out of the board.

Ease of Use
Simple and straightforward - seemingly. However, I've had difficulty finding settings that didn't give an air of "hey! I'm a cheap tube preamp!" The gain staging is a little tricky if your goal is to use the limiter, but not have it slammed the whole time.

Quality
It's built very nice for the price, no doubt about that. It's good looking gear. I'm not too upset about having wall-wart power supplies. The connectors are decent quality, and the pots/knobs feel solid. In use is where the cheapness becomes apparent.

Value
Solidly built, good looking, and the sound isn't bad - it just isn't good, and definitely not "pro" - but for the price who could really argue?

Manufacturer Support
From what I hear, Samson support is pretty good. I haven't personally used them however. I couldn't imagine calling them up and saying "hey, this C-Valve sounds like a cheap generic piece of gear" and them saying anything besides, "well, you should have known that."

The Wow Factor
Well, it looked like it would be more useful than it actually has turned out to be. I'd say a lot of these have been sold on price alone, since it's rock-bottom.

Musical Background:
Recording Engineer/Producer

Musical Style:
Funk/Soul/Gospel/Hip-Hop/Pop read less