M-Audio Tampa vs. Focusrite Penta

  • Thread starter Thread starter ndycus1
  • Start date Start date
N

ndycus1

New member
I am wondering, based on either your own personal experience or what you've heard from others, which of these two preamps is better. Both the M-Audio Tampa and the Focusrite Penta are in the $400 price range. Any feedback would be helpful. Thank You.
 
I own a Tampa and the compressor is awesome and the pre is very good. I've heard that the Penta is a good unit to. I think you'll get the same results with eather unit.
 
I haven't heard the Tampa but I did own the Penta.

It has a good clean pre. It doesn't really have any kind of character to it. Kinda sterile sounding and although versitile because of that ..... its what I liked least about it.

That said, the tube saturation (emulator) knob was really cool and pretty smooth sounding. It got a lot of use.

The compressor takes some getting used to but the different settings make for REALLY different compression.

The whole gain structure seems to change with various settings and much different output levels dpending on the setting ..... more than the gain reduction would indicate.

Most of the compression gets up to moderately aggressive but few settings really crush.

I kinda wish I hadn't got rid of it but I never had that "can't wait to use it" feeling with it either.

-mike
 
formerlyfzfile said:
... the tube saturation (emulator) knob was really cool and pretty smooth sounding. It got a lot of use.
Click to expand...
Is this a "starved plate" design?
 
Giganova said:
Is this a "starved plate" design?
Click to expand...

from what i understand its just emulation, there is no actual tube in the unit.

actually i'm quite interested in this shoot out. i think i'd have bought the tampa by now if the comp and converters were stereo
 
I agree that the tube emulation (on Penta) sounds better than expected. I didn't touch that knob for a long time, but when I did, I was a bit surprised. On DI'd bass, it's quite usable. The preamp is good, stereo compressor is good, and the stereo width enhancer sucks.
 
The Penta isn't horribley bad. Seems a waste though to have only one mic-pre, with a stereo compressor that is unlinkable, a dual mono option would have been nice, so at least you could use the compressor for something else, while using a mic. A second pre would have been nice too.
 
i really like my Penta, It has a very nice clean pre and the compressor is very good and transparant when used moderately. i never really liked D.I.-ing bass but through the penta it sounds great and very usable. I have never heard the Tampa though....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top