Mesa Boogie Studio preamp... need opinions ASAP!

[Jupiter]

Hey guys!
I've been offered a Mesa Studio preamp for $250. It is missing two knobs, one tip from an EQ slider, and needs a new nut for the front input jack, which has fallen into the unit. Is this a good price for the preamp?
Money is extremely tight for me, and i quite literally can't afford to make any mistakes when purchasing gear. If i buy this thing, it will need to suit exactly what i'm looking for! I play rhythm and lead in a heavy prog metal band, and i need an amp that has lots of gain, but still remains extremely articulate and responsive to palm mutes for rhytthm work. Having my leads cut through the mix is very important, too. To give you an idea about what kind of tone i'm after, let me give you some examples of tones that i like: Lamb of God's rhythm tone on As the Palaces Burn, Nevemore's tone {rhythm and lead} on their new album, Dino from Fear Factory had unreal rhythm tone, John Petrucci from Dream Theater {rhythm and lead, especially on Awake}, Steve Vai always has amazing lead tone, Meshuggah's rhythm and lead tone on Destroy, Erase, Improve, and of course, Van Halen always has good tone.
I don't like the modern Boogie Recto sound that so many new bands {Default, Nickleback, Korn, Limp Bizkit, etc...} have. I like my rhythm sounds to have huge gain yet still remain EXTEREMLY articulate and responsive to picking, my lead sounds to be very clear, warm, articulate, smooth {well, non-shrill, that is... not like Santana smooth, but unharsh} and have enough gain for nice legato and harmonics, and my clean sounds to be, well, clean. I'm not awfully picky about cleans, but if it can score a nice clean, it's certainly a perk.
If anyone can hook me up with some audio clips of this thing in action doing the kinds of tones that i'm after { mail to: Mecki213@cs.com } i would be eternally grateful. I need some info pretty soon, before the unit gets sold. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Ben

[jpwannabe]

LOL, take it, if you don't want it tell me where to get it.

[dmsdj5]

Originally Posted by jpwannabe

LOL, take it, if you don't want it tell me where to get it.

[Jupiter]

Hmm, after following the advice of others, i may avoid buying this particular unit... If it's that damaged on the outside, there's no telling what could have happened on the inside, and that kinda bothers me. Forgot to mention, one of the pots that is missing a knob also has a good chunk of the shaft broken off. I'm pretty curious as for what could have caused that kind of damage.... So does anyone think i would like the Studio tone-wise?

[steve]

The Studio Pre has a great high-gain saturated sound; it is a Boogie sound, so if you like that particular flavour of sound, it should do well for you. I think that the tone controls aren't as powerful as I'd prefer them to be, though. The clean is very sparkling and nice.
The low end is nice, but using a 7-string guitar through mine, I found that it got a little loose and flabby with those ultra-low frequencies. With a 6, though, I never noted that at all.
There are just two channels to this unit; clean and overdrive. You may need an OD pedal or something for a lead boost, if you're mainly doing overdriven rhythm sounds.
I used one for quite a few years (up until just a couple of months ago, I guess), and got a lot out of it.