M-Audio Tampa Fluff or Fact?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Somnium7
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Somnium7

Somnium7

Noise Criminal
Ok this struck me as mumbo jumbo marketing hype. maybe somebody here can make heads or tails of this and kindly explain it to us perpetually-clueless and brain-dead consumers. From the sales copy of the M-Audio Tampa preamp:

Tube-based devices strike the ear as having such a "warm" sound because the added harmonics have the same temporal relationship as natural mechanisms (although predominantly in the midrange). This results in a sweet spot that makes vocals, guitars and other midrange-rich content sound especially pleasing. TAMPA's revolutionary new Temporal Harmonic Alignment technology produces that same phase relationship found in both tubes and nature. And unlike tubes, TAMPA's sweet spot spans the full spectrum of your sound.​

Temporal Harmonic Alignment? I saw this once on TNG where Picard and friends find themselves in a part of space where pockets of time are running at different speeds....
but the question presented to us here is WTF are they talking about?
 
I've owned a Tampa for a few years now. I raved about it on here when I first got it and my sentiments are the same 2 years down the line. It's the cleanest pre I've heard in this price range that still has some loveable characteristics when you push it hard.

I remember thinking the compressor on it wasn't working when I first got it...then I realised what transparent ment.

both bulbs in the VU meters have gone and the meters seem to be a bit lazy in a sloped rack but if it died tomorrow I'd replace it in an instant.

My comparisons are drawn from an Allen & Heath Saber, soundcraft Ghost, Soundtracs Topaz project 8 and an spl goldmic.

It's been teamed with a lot of mics over the two years I've had it, the SM57 on guitar cabs comes out great, the studio projects B1 rounds out nicely through it and the rodes sound a lot less harsh and brital through it....to my ears
 
i call BINGO in the game of BS Buzzword Bingo.

but you know what? it's an excellent sounding preamp. whatever the marketing-based mumbojumbo behind it, it makes everything going into it sound big and sweet.

i don't pay any attention to, lend any creedence to, buy products based on, or even bother to read the marketing nonsense. i let the piece of gear do its own talking and make my own decisions.


cheers,
wade
 
Anytime you read copypasta about how tubes change the sound of an instrument or microphone, consider this: If these folks really knew exactly what a tube does and how it works it's little magical tricks, you would see them making solid state gadgets that sound exactly like tubes do. They don't, you don't, and that's because the non linearity of tube response is probably too complicated to emulate via electronics or describe using anything less than headache math.
Don't get me wrong, a transistor is fine, too. I prefer 'em for some applications, just don't have any illusions about their similarities to tubes.
 
Tube-based devices strike the ear as having such a "warm" sound because the added harmonics have the same temporal relationship as natural mechanisms (although predominantly in the midrange).

Wow this line especially throws me for a loop. Hmmm "natural mechanisms"? Who wrote this crap? Who was the target audience? Where is the secret decoder wheel to decipher it?

While I'm sure the product has it's merits I guess the only way to know what they are is to try it out. All the flowery prose in the world cannot tell you what's right for your ears. Wade made this point before and I totally agree.

I like tubey sounding things sometimes. Trick with tube stuff is there is never a constant. I have a little Presonus TubePre. It has an actual tube but out of the box the thing sounded cold. Had me wondering if the tube was fake. So I put a new Groove Tubes unit in there and now it's warmer. It gets even warmer when I swap in an old used 12AT7.
It's not unusual for several new tubes of the same type to have different "personalities".
One tube can have a drastically different sound depending on the plate voltage and the coupling circuit used. The impedance of the output stage can vary the frequency range of the entire amp. The types of blocking capacitors used between the stages of the tube can have different distortion variables.
How can all of this be emulated?
Does the emulation take any specific tube, circuit topology or voltage levels into acount?
They never tell you this.
I've seen some gear that uses Field Effect Transistors to mimic tube sound and these generally do sound pretty close. I've built and experimented with FET circuits and found they do have alot of similarities to tubes. Even the same varibles in regard to the actual FET used and it's interaction with voltage levels and other components in the circuit.
Instead of all the mumbo-jumbo they ought to write something that actually tells you something. For instance...

Our new Preamp model XYZ emulates tube sound using selected FETs in tuned Mu-Amp circuits. Special attention was paid in designing a variable impedance output stage which is carefully calibrated to impart the dynamics and frequency response of a single-ended transformer output found on many types of vintage equipment. etc. etc.

Sure it's rather technical sounding but it's all good information and a person trying to make an educated comparison can actually look up more real information that will give a better explanation. This goes alot further than using vague/bogus buzzwords that ultimately say nothing about how the product achieves the claims of it's designers.
In the process of dumbing down sales copy they also risk insulting the intelligence of their market.
 
mrface2112 said:
i call BINGO in the game of BS Buzzword Bingo.

but you know what? it's an excellent sounding preamp. whatever the marketing-based mumbojumbo behind it, it makes everything going into it sound big and sweet.

i don't pay any attention to, lend any creedence to, buy products based on, or even bother to read the marketing nonsense. i let the piece of gear do its own talking and make my own decisions.


cheers,
wade
Click to expand...

+1 That's pretty much the bottom line.
 
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