Try them out before you buy. In my opinion, these are not worth it at all. You already have a better preamp in your interface- and if you don't, then buy a better interface! Behringer is often hit or miss, and I think this is a total miss. The price might be appealing, but I for one was seriously under-impressed by the performance of the unit... and I can rule out the units that i tested being faulty or defective because I tested about a dozen of them:

Without the EQ engaged, the preamp section was useable, but it didn't sound as good as basic interface preamp (Focusrite, Apollo, Avid interfaces, etc) Unfortunately, these preamps do not sound good at high gain settings and they do not flatter harsh sources... which is one of the major strengths of vintage Neve 1073 and modern BAE 1073.
The true sound of a 1073 is big and heavy, and when driven into the point of obliteration- they hardly ever sound harsh because you always have that EQ to carve-out the sound on the way in... which is a great way to segway to the EQ portion of the review...
The EQ- the LEAST impressive part of this unit. I was seriously disappointed by the boost EQ on these. The 1073 EQ is supposed to be quite gentle, and yet they should allow you to make somewhat large moves and actually improve the sound. With the Behringer, you just get mud, then when carve-out the mud, all you're left with is fizz & sizzle, and quite a bit of harshness when boosting anywhere in the upper mids / highs


In summation, they look pretty, but they sound ugly... it might be somewhat useful to have the HPF and the ability to do some reductive EQ on the way in, BUT the additive EQ is where the "true sound" is at on a 1073, and these just don't sound musical at all when you push the gain to higher settings or when you boost with the EQ. Save some money and stay away from this crapola. I think a Focusrite Clarett+ preamp WITHOUT eq sounds miles ahead of the Behringer 1073 WITH eq.

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This unit looks and sounds amazing. It's awesome that you get a stereo unit for such a small price. I've had the 1273 for 8 months now and it has performed most excellent. It has a nice clean tone to it like you'd expect a Neve to have, and the EQ adds a nice tone to it also, very musical. I compared it to the UAD Neve 1073 and it isn't even close, the 1273 outshines it completely. The one thing that I don't like about the UAD 1073 is, although it has a decent tone, it don't add that analog harmonics that seem to make the vocals sit on top of the track. The 1273 does exactly that. It has plenty of gain and it's easy to balance the left/right channels. It has a very nice tone when you drive the input to add some harmonic distortion, and even when you drive it hard it still sounds good. I've owned the Heritage Audio HA73EQ ELITE Microphone Preamp & EQ and I wasn't satisfied with its sound at all, I returned it, with that being said the 1273 is head and shoulders above it. I don't have a Neve 1073 to compare but I have a friend that does and we both ran the same audio tracks through our respective 1073s (mine's was the 1273) and to be quite honest the real Neve sounded better but the difference was so slight if you didn't listen back to back but instead added a few seconds gap between each example then you wouldn't be able to tell which one is the real Neve. We compared it both the Neve 1073 and the Behringer 1273 just preamp alone, then with EQ engaged, and then through his 1073 & CL1B, and my 1273 WA-1B, the difference was slight. Behringer has really made great preamps and compressors very affordable, you can't go wrong.

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Overal,l the construction is nice, and for the price, it sounds quite good too. I also own a WA273 (allegedly, Behringer went after that product more than trying to copy an actual 1073... at least that's what I heard) and the Warm Audio is superior in everything, especially the sound; I'd say the Behringer 1273 has a bit less character and color, as well as less gain, however, it does have a bit of that Neve-like flavor you might be looking for.

I've had this unit for a few weeks now so I cannot comment on its long-term durability. Putting that aside, I think this thing sounds great. I have never used an actual hardware Neve 1073, so I can not compare it to that. However, I prefer the sound of this 1273 over comparable plug-ins that I own which emulate the 1073. The knobs do feel a bit cheap, but that's really the only downside in my opinion. Is it the real thing? Nope. Will it get you 95% of the way there for a small fraction of the cost? Absolutely.

Just got mine in. I do not have the real deal to compare it to, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be fair to.

I do have an ART MPA II so I can compare that.

I love the way it's laid out. The 1273 is intuitive. If you aren't used to the eq having concentric pots for eq, these will be a breeze to learn. The pots don't seem like they will break, but the knobs aren't machines very cell and allow the post to wobble. So if just be careful not to turn them with pressure applied.

The front plate is thick and sturdy like vintage gear. Not like Klark front plates that are thin. The fit and finish are great. The multiple options for I/o make mixing into it a breeze. And the xlr and instrument cable on front make access easy.

Sounds.. I don't like to describe sounds in reviews but I'll say it does the neve crunchy thing well. It is a nice unit to drive for some hair in your mix. On my unit the left channel is .3db lower than the right. Easily corrected. However a channel link would be nice.

The inserts are great. They sit between the gain and the eq. I don't use them that ways but if you do, it's easy with a trs cable through a patch bay. The phantom power was refreshingly clean. I normally test this out by letting the preamp power an active direct box. In my studio, that usually gets quite noisy. In this unit I found no problem with interference.

Last thing in case you use ribbon mics and sm7b. You won't need a cloud lifter. I tested between just the preamp and using a cloud lifter into interface, the 1273 was just as low noise with ample gain.

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