The Shure A15LA is a line adapter that is designed to convert a high level line output to a low impedance microphone input. It's got 50 db's of attenuation in it, and is more of a utility than anything else. We have one of these in the studio where I work, and although it hasn't seen all that much use in the time I've been working there, it's still a good adapter to have around as you never know when you might need it. It's built very well, and as long as you don't treat it really poorly, you should have an adapter in this for a long time. It certainly does the job for converting a high level line output to a low impedance mic input, and doesn't do anything more or less. You'll see the Shure A15LA being used with things like phono and tape machines to convert this to something that soft enough to be used with a microphone input. Since it does have XLR on both ends, you'll most likely need a converter if you are using it with something like a tape player. I can't say that I've used too many converters like this one that I can recall, so unfortunately I can't really compare this to anything. It doesn't really make much of a difference which way you go if you need one of these, but rest assured with Shure's A15LA that you're getting a very well made product at a pretty reasonable price. It does seem that something like this should be a bit cheaper than it is, but it definitley wouldn't be like Shure to overprice something. Since I can't recommend any other alternatives, if I needed a converter like this one for my home studio or elsewhere, I'd be going with this one for sure.