Excellent value for the money

You will get what you paid for, and a little more. For the price, this unit is almost priceless. It works without a smallest hitch powered through USB port (even via a Belkin USB unpowered hub!). Considering its size (another big selling point for a touring musician!), it is very well designed; compact and sturdy. Both preamps are very quiet. The manufacturer claims that the unit may be used as an audio interface and, apparently, is valued for its clean, warm sound. As every one, I take such statements with a grain of salt. Yet what the manufacturer says is completely true! The sound is indeed clean and warm. ( If used for recording, I recommend normalising afterwards.) I use it with the fantastic Edirol FA-101 interface, connected through ins 3-4. Under MacOSX no drivers are necessary. Also, I was able to create an Aggregate Device on my Mac, combingthe Dual Pre with the Edirol interface, giving me 10 ins/12 outs; this works great with Ableton Live 8. I played recordings made with this setup (plus a pair of Samson cardioid mics) for a couple of top notch pro engineers. They were positively surprised by the very high quality of the resultant sound. I recommend this product very warmly. BTW, Sweetwater service was superb and friendly, at least as good as what we are used to in Canada. Overall VERY POSITIVE experience.

Does exactly what it says...great unit.

I'm giving this little a 5 start rating because I'm considering its price. You get 2 ins (XLR-1/4") and two outs (1/4") plus a headphone output. Works great, no noise, decent gain-level, USB powered, and ultra portable! I'm using it only for rehearsals with string quartets, solo bassoon, solo cello, etc and it works great. I'm using it both for MaxMSP and Logic. You can get decent materials out of it. Highly recommended for these occasions. However, I wouldn't use it for a live situation or a more serious recording project. Overall, highly recommended, and for $80 you can't go wrong. Trust me!

Very Versatile and Handy

Consumer reviews can be very misleading due to prejudices, misunderstandings and both positive and negative over reactions . I try to be objective and realistic because I like to be actually helpful rather than vent.
Now on with the review. The Art USB Dual is a JEWEL Pre. The caveats? It'is neither a Grace Design preamp nor a 24 bit 96kHz Cakewalk interface. It's not intended to be a high end studio console that fits in your pocket. It is an extremely handy tool of excellent quality that can make remote productions very convenient and make your day. It is the most versatile product of it's nature. There's nothing else to compare it with. Let's take a close look. It's relatively tiny and very compact. That makes it easy to carry and store. The disadvantage here is the slight clumsy use of the controls. The preamps sound very good and he phantom power is claimed to be a full 48 volts. My unit seemed to be prone to slight hum on the USB line which turned out to be caused by my laptop a/c adapter. The bit depth is 16, which seems troublesome for folks who think numbers are the end all answer to sound quality . Sixteen bit depth at a 44.1 kHz sample rate is absolute CD quality and is the best your end product will be, no matter what. If you are doing very complex studio mixing and editing, you may need the 24 bit headroom. In that case you probably wouldn't be using a USB interface. Technique and mic quality are far more significant considerations.
The battery compartment issue is interesting. I purchased the latest version, hoping the overly tight fit would be fixed. It is however, still a problem. If you insert the battery all the way it may become a permanent installation. I am actually going to turn this into a positive. Simply don't put it all the way down. It stays very secure even with the battery half exposed. The positive note here is that it helps to remind you to remove it after the job, thus saving battery leakage or drainage from forgetting to turn it off. Nothing is perfect, but I do think the USB Dual Pre is the perfect solution for portability and versatility. A combination USB interface and an analog preamp for providing a couple of extra inputs can make all the difference in achieving a successful project. As I said, there's nothing comparable. .

Excellent So Far

I bought this box to replace a much larger rig (mixer, 8-track HDD Recorder) for some simple stereo recording; mostly instrumental/vocal recital-type stuff.

So far, this Interface does exactly what it's supposed to. I'm running this through Ableton Live8 and it's working beautifully. Very low noise, clean sound.

My only minor issue is the 9-volt battery slot is a bit difficult to work with... It's a piece of cardboard between the battery and the inner-workings of the preamp. This makes it difficult to change batteries.

Other than that I'm pleased with it's performance.

I'll post another review after I can get some serious use out of it.

Take out battery: simple

Superglue a heavy-duty L-shape to the battery and you will be able to pull it out.

Nice unit with fatal flaw; can't remove dead batteries!

Electrically, this dual preamp does exactly what it should. The pres are quiet, the construction quality is robust (with one glaring exception- more on that in a minute) and the pots are static-free. When running the unit on an external power adapter (not included) or via USB, you'll probably be a happy camper.

HOWEVER. If you need to run it on a 9V battery for field use, you're out of luck. The battery "compartment" is, believe it or not, a taped-together CARDBOARD sleeve which seems to be intended to keep the battery case from shorting out the nearby, and fully exposed, electronics. The battery is held in place by friction alone; there are no walls whatsoever on the battery 'compartment.' Unfortunately (to put it mildly) there is absolutely no way to remove a dead battery from the unit! That's right, it's stuck in there forever. There's no room for needle-nosed pliers to get a grip, there's no possible way to get your fingernails around the battery, there's no little red 'battery removal' ribbon like there used to be on old-fashioned electronics... and even if there were, the cardboard sleeve fits in the opening so tightly that I'm not sure the battery could be removed before the ribbon broke.

Unless you have the foresight to stuff a little gremlin inside the unit who can shove dead batteries out for you, (which I didn't,) you're well and truly out of luck when it comes time to change the battery.

ART really blew it on the battery 'compartment' design. The unit is otherwise a dandy, affordable preamp- but how they let this flaw get past them is anyone's guess. Disappointing, to say the very least.