PreSonus Comp16

It is a very simple and straight forward unit to use. You might want to play around a little with your entry level signal and your output. I find that best results are achieved when the output level isnt boosted too high. Having the Output knob past 12 o-clock includes a relatively high hiss.

The sound quality is very good for the price.

I do not intend to use the unit in a gig, although based on other people's review if I had to I probably would consider bringing a back up of some sort. I've used mine for recording for the last 7 months, regularly enough, I have had no issues with it.

Overall I would recommend this unit to somebody out there that wants to add some quality to his/her bedroom recording. The ability to feed a compressed signal into your computer or multitracker is surely good. It immediately changes the overall sound of your demos/tracks, making the whole process a lot more enjoyable and "professional" sounding.

Ease of use was one of the pre-requisites as I set this system up for volunteer church sound operators to plug into their systems.

I am using this with a Samson Qv headset mic and a Samson wireless system. The combination is very effective and sounds great. I gave the mic review a 9 by itself because I believe the Presonus adds a bit of pleasant enhancement. With a headset you need a compressor and this one fits the bill.

I had the power supply fail on me. It is an AC supply so you don't just pick one up at the corner store.

Tech Support were helpful.

I play acoustic guitar driven Contemporary Christian Worship. I have a good technical understanding of sound engineering from college courses but little practical experience with really expensive stuff. This combination is high in value and serves me well. It only gets a 9 for value because if I eventually replace the PS again it may have been a better investment to get the blue-max...

Blind monkeys could dial in a great sound on this unit. The mystery of compression settings for various applications has always eluded me. Presonus demystifies the process by offering 16 presets for a wide variety of applications. The manual, though short, is very helpful.

The lighted VU meter is a nice touch. You can switch it back and forth between output makeup gain and gain reduction amount.

The unit doesn't have an adjustable threshold, but instead uses an input gain control to vary the level of the input signal, and thus the compression amount. That takes a little getting used to, but the manual is very clear about how to accomplish this.

Nice and quiet. I had absolutely no problem getting a professional, natural sounding compression on vocals, bass, or acoustic guitar. It is the perfect compliment to the PreSonus TubePre. The differences in some of the presets may sound subtle at first pass, but there are definite differences; enough to warrant separate presets. For a $100 unit, this is one killer compressor.

So far, so good. There don't seem to be parts that will wear.

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I use the product in my home studio, along with a PreSonus TubePre. They're a great pair and work well together. The COMP16 has greatly improved the quality of my vocal tracks. Now they sit up front in the mix with added punch and warmth. I don't have to worry about overloading my soundcard's inputs and it definitely adds that pro sound to my bass and acoustic tracks. Astounding results for a $100 unit.

A guitar player can dial it in. A drummer could more than likely set it up so it would add to the mix. If you can't figure this unit out by looking at it, How do you flush your toilet.

It's quiet, does what a comp is supposed to do. Like I said in ease of use, you have 16 presets pick the one that fits what you hear in your head. For the money great. Remember we are talking a $100 unit here, not a $10,000 one. Great first compressorand for home studio use.

Mine always works fine when I turn it on. No problems, sits on my desk in a pile with my Tubepre and EQ3B. The 3 of them are a nice little power trio. Now I own other higher end products they sit nexy to a Grace, Joe Meek, a Focusrite and a Green River plus 4 more Presonus's. I use the trio as a Bass rig with a American P-bass into Emu 1820m and Sonar 4. I am jazz, blues and prog country mainly. But I do like Eric Johnson and Steve Vai so I do rock with this stuff also. Like I said as releable as death and taxes.

Chad and the people at Presonus are right on helpfull people. I have not had problems with any of their units, BUT I am not the type of guy that hooks a bunch stuff together and turns it on and see's what happens. I ask and they answer.

A 10, I'd recomend this as a good entry level unit. It will teach you what compression does by showing you, just turn the knob.

very easy to use through any recording system. I have not tried it live yet but would like to use it in that enviroment.
Even though it is self explanitory, a manuel would be nice so that you can see the way all the presets are measured.

sound is great. since i purchased this product my vocal sounds have been a great improvment.

very dependable except the lack of support for phantom power

If there was an upgraded modle that supported phantom power and didn't cost much more than this I would recomand purchasing that product.

Only downfall of this product is NO PHANTOM POWER. it doesn't support it at all. makes the raiting of it fall dramaticlly.
It is small and easy to place in studio or live enviroment.
Vocal presets are good. could use a couple more Perc presets

Very easy to use. Has presets that sound great (when the machine works)... It has at least three presets for each type of instrument (including vocals), except percussion where it has two. There is a bypass and a VU meter which helps (when the machine works)...

This is a stripped down version of the BlueMAX.

Sounds pretty good. Compression is noticeable but isn't too much. I haven't really compared it to other compressors of it's kind, but there seemed to be no added noise, very clear and transparent.

This is my second Comp16!! The first failed on me after a few weeks after buying (brand new from guitar center, not a floor model, not used!). The second one is smoking now... I was supposed to record vocals now, so in my anger I'm venting out at PreSonus. TWO TIMES IT FAILED!!!

This machine would be absolutely GREAT if it worked. Decent price, easy-to-use presettings, and small enough to gig with. However, I have had TWO fail on me within weeks of buying it. I handle them with care and barely used it all.