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Choosing a DI box

#21
Evil Undead said:
I want a DI box to connect my bass to my amp and PA.

Bass is a passive Fender P
Head is Promethean P500H
Cab is Markbass 210

I'm keen on Radial stuff but they have so many to choose from.

Active or passive?
Which model?
Any other DI boxes recommended?
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Active. You want a Radial J48. If not that, then a Countryman Type 85. Either way, you'll never have to worry about whether you DI is good enough.
 
#23
Evil Undead said:
I assume it's fine for live use as well?
Click to expand...

That's how I use it. And since the best that soundguys use where I live is the Whirlwind IMP 2, they've been extremely impressed by the AR-133. In the beginning they were like "why do you want to use that if we have this? You don't need to carry a DI box". Now they ask for it when they see me arrive to the venue and put their Whirlwinds/Behringers away without asking anything.
 
#27
Tunaman said:
Just a quick question... what makes a Radial 48\ Countryman Type 85 "Better" than a BDDI or MXR M 80?
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Not necessarily "better," since they're not the same thing. The Radial and Countryman are extremely well constructed inside and out. The J48 has a Jensen transformer in it. The Type 85 is virtually indestructible and has great tone (as does the J48). If you are looking for a simple DI, there aren't any better than those two. They are the industry standard. Now we'll hear from the U5 and REDDI crowd, who will assume you want to spend $500+ on a DI.

In my acoustic trio, I run my Fodera through a J48 direct to the board and control my tone from the bass. It's nice and clean.

The other two have tone and drive controls which is fine if that's what you want. However, I wouldn't buy either of those units if I were going to have only one DI with tone controls (although I own both.) I'd go with the ParaDriver DI which has a semi-parametric mid control making it much more versatile than the SABDDI. Personally, I find the tone of the M80 too aggressive and awful.
 
#32
Munjibunga said:
Not necessarily "better," since they're not the same thing. The Radial and Countryman are extremely well constructed inside and out. The J48 has a Jensen transformer in it. The Type 85 is virtually indestructible and has great tone (as does the J48).
Click to expand...

If you are running STRICTLY pre-EQ DI... will there be any appreciable difference in line noise, signal loss, tone coloring from the Radial\Countryman to the BDDI & M80? I never ever use the post EQ for either the BDDI or M80.

Was reading through the Custom search Bongomania added

A lot of the same stuff but again the question of what makes a DI better took a while to come up. The best post was that the Jenson transformers really bust hum. Thats what I'm looking for otherwise I just use my Genz Benz 9.2max DI. Last gig the hum was ridiculous from the outlets (I tested EVERYTHING) I had to go direct out my wireless which was not ideal but at least clean.
 
#33
If you have the cash,

Radial JDV (is quite expensive)

if you want cheaper the J48 is the next best thing. The JDV is one of the best peices of kit i have aquired. Plus radial go full on hard-core on the casing! This is very useful because silly sound engineers walk on DI boxes and sometimes drop stuff on them!

If you get a Radial make sure the polarity switch is in the right way, as you may think its broken !

Thats the advice i can give, hope it helps..... but to note, since buying a proper DI box instead of using a crappy Behringer one, the sound of my bass through the PA is far better! So getting a good DI is definately worth it !
 
#34
I would say it depends on what your after... If you want one to throw in your gig bag I'd say Radial J48. Built like a tank, sounds great, small enough. I you don't mind carrying another small case the A designs REDDI s amazing. I have fixed enough Countryman DIs over the years to say they are not exactly road worthy.
 
#37
I like to run one of the main outs of my preamp to the foh instead of going straight from the bass. What would you guys Recomend? I'd like something I can mount inside my rack ( not a rackmount unit) and basically be able to just plug into the board and go. Looking for something simple, bulletproof, and on the cheaper side.

Just wondering if any one is better or worse for the application.
 
#40
another one to give a look is the Behringer BDI21. It's a blatantly obvious BDDI rip off, but there's a blind sound test around here somewhere and when I listened I preferred the Behringer to the real BDDI. I haven't heard any reports of it being unreliable and the price makes it an unbeatable deal. I plan on picking one up myself after I get my new amp.
 

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