Yeah, in fact, much much faster if pentamelded.
When I became all-90 DoH at the beginning of Endwalker, I had zero Grade 10 materia to begin with. So I only lightly-melded my lvl 90 white gear with just Grade 8/7 materia like this, and pentamelded with irrelevant materia, so every gear has maximum spiritbonding speed. I prefer to make my own Grade 9/10 materia instead of buying. I have plenty of gil, but I refused to pay 10 mil on the MB to pentameld my gear with Grade 9/10 materia before even knowing the upcoming 2-star master recipes' requirements. Going max stats blindly is not my style. I prefer to know what I need before spending on the pentamelds.
And this time, it paid off completely. Because even with these silly melds, I could still craft everything with ease. That means I have a few months' time to spiritbond, and to extract hundreds of Grade 9/10 materia for pentamelding future gear sets later.
