I purchased my first MPX G2 from ZZounds for $999.95. The second one I purchased from Mars going outta business sale for $550.00. The first one was sent back. The main reason I purchased the second one is because I liked some of the effects the unit has. It was also advertised as being able to record direct with no amp. The unit has several effects that I really like (flanger, delay and some of the compressed effects). The Jam man 20 second looper is a nice feature. The main reason I sent the first unit back is because of the excess hum and noise when it was plugged into my amp which is a new fender 65 super reverb. I also tried the unit with my other amps and got the same results (a roland BC60 Blues cube and a fender princeton chorus). When using it to record (into a boss BR-8) I experienced quite a bit of feedback (after the last note was played) on some of the effects which was quite annoying. The second one I purchased from Mars was less noisy than the first (I had the opportunity to plug it in to an amp and test it before I purchased it) but there was still a great deal of feedback on some of the effects when I used for recording again. The MPX G2 is a rack mount unit and it solidly constructed. Where the unit lacks the quality is in the electronics or parts used to connect it to other amps. I would not recommend buying this unit unless they found a bargain basement price like the one I found at Mars. Secondly in order to use some of the effects properly you must purchase the foot controller for another $400. More than likely you won't be happy after shelling out $1400 for the unit and the foot controller ! I would highly recommend a Boss GT-6 over the Lexicon. The effects are very similar and it has the Wah/volume pedal attached right to it. (somehow its $1000 less expensive !). I even prefer my Johnson J-Station for recording over the MPX G2. LEXICON MPX G2 THUMBS DOWN !!!!!! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com