I've been a solo amateur home studio recording hobbyist for many years
now and I used to think I knew what I was doing (but my gear wasn't
good enough.) Lately I have been reading this NG and have started to
question everything. Last night I spent a good deal of time going
through a very dramatic thread on mic preamps and started to realize I
don't really know what they do.

I think this: They take a weak electronic signal and power it up so
that it is useful to the gear you want to record the signal to. But
there are these concepts of coloring, tube warmth, noise floor,
linearity, minimalism ("gain down a wire,")etc. that make for a lot of
argument. So what does one want a mic pre to do? Be a neutral signal
gain or expand characteristics of your source sound?

I ask sincerely because I am starting to realize that going around and
around in this "if only I had better gear" mentality is not getting me
anywhere I could stand to make some big improvements if I actually
knew what my frigging gear does and how to use it sensibly. A few
years ago I got this little Belari "tube" mic pre and never used it
because I couldn't hear a significant difference between it and my
Behringer mixer pres, it only gave me the added bonus of having
distorted vocals when I turned it up.

Your wisdom on this is greatly appreciated.

gary