Powell wrote:

After reading the product information it doesn’t appear
to be a good candidate for studio use.

As others have pointed out, this seems a strange way to listen to a product.



Weak power supply.

On what do you base this assertion? The unit can drive +28 from its balanced out and eat nearly that at its input--without using a pad. Sure, there are other preamps capable of those (and better) numbers, but none of them is selling at under $250/channel.


It also only has three LED lights to represent the entire
audio spectrum, that not very useful.

Would you prefer more lights and less sound?



The incomplete specification sheet is particularly troubling, too.

FMR answers email and telephones.




If the output of the unit was truly flat,
however you wish to define that, it would have not have
any apparent sound quality/signature. It would truly be
“straight wire with gain.”

This demonstrates a fundamental lack of knowledge of electronics, much less their operation in realworld systems.



None of the sited manufactures
are working the on bleeding edge of technology. In a
similar technology like phono pre-amps, for example, one
has to invest $2-10 K per channel to reach that level.

These days, one can reach the highest levels of microphone preamplification for $1k - $3k per channel. I'll attribute the price disparity mostly to smaller metalwork and advertising budgets.


There is no market place in the sound recording industry
for that kind of assault.

Assault?



Some have said that it’s the
recording industry who is holding up high end media
like types like DVD-A & SACD from becoming more
popular because of all this foot dragging.

"Some" are no doubt not actually recording much.

Foot dragging? I think you'll need to look more at the consumers lack of interest and at the fight between DVD-A and SACD for ownership of the category.