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The skinny on nice DI's
- Thread starter J.Wolf
- Start date
svtb15
Inactive
- Mar 22, 2004
- 13,004
- 4,741
- Disclosures
- I play it all. Whatever works for the gig. Q+
svtb15
Inactive
- Mar 22, 2004
- 13,004
- 4,741
- Disclosures
- I play it all. Whatever works for the gig. Q+
i have found that the DI out in my shuttle is slightly more warm sounding than the Countryman.. but just as quiet when in the PRE Eq mode
Wow, that's interesting...I AB'd the DI in my LMII to the Countryman and was quite shocked at how brittle it sounded compared to the Countryman. It's a good sounding DI, but the Countryman was a lot better.
svtb15
Inactive
- Mar 22, 2004
- 13,004
- 4,741
- Disclosures
- I play it all. Whatever works for the gig. Q+
yeah the countryman was more open in the top end than on my shuttle6.... the shuttle 6 DI is slightly less open.. but very good and better than any other amp DI that i have... and i use it almost all the time with a thumbs up from FOH folks... any other amp DI that i have used the sound guy would give thumbs down. that never happened with the Genz gear.
I dont know about the MB LMII DI though.
The countryman is very smooth and clear and even...and pristine.. i think they are the best bang for the buck in a pro box that you can get. and you can probably derail a train on the tacks with that thing.. built real well.. mine is 30 years old and still in use.
I dont know about the MB LMII DI though.
The countryman is very smooth and clear and even...and pristine.. i think they are the best bang for the buck in a pro box that you can get. and you can probably derail a train on the tacks with that thing.. built real well.. mine is 30 years old and still in use.
- Apr 29, 2003
- 9,074
- 9,790
- Disclosures
- Contributor- Bass Musician Magazine | Marketing Manager- Trickfish Amplification
I have had very mixed results using the DI on my LMII. I've heard it sound bad enough to not want to use it to send to FOH, and I have had it sound good enough to track an album with, which (FWIW) I thought came out sounding better than average for a single direct track. So I don't know whats up with that, but its too unreliable at least. I like the direct out on my Mesa M6, but don't always use that amp, and I still need a good sounding DI for standalone use.
Maybe I'll just get a countryman... 150 bucks, can't beat that. For some reason I feel like I had a lackluster experience with one once, but can't exactly remember what or why. The consistent praise here makes me want to give it another go.
Maybe I'll just get a countryman... 150 bucks, can't beat that. For some reason I feel like I had a lackluster experience with one once, but can't exactly remember what or why. The consistent praise here makes me want to give it another go.
Assuming the OP is using his own amp as well..I think...
One of my prerequisites when buying a bass amp is that it has a really good DI, I love the Glockenklang stuff all around great. Most live venues don't have good enough sound to warrant a REDDI or something else, I wish they did. One of the better clubs I play in has a Midas board, macrotech amps and high end JBL line arrays and I use the DI on my Glock head and they love it. I have heard what the bass sounds like out front and I can tell you carrying my Millennia TD1 is not worth it, although I avoid whirlwind if I see them laying around.
I realize for those playing without an amp and for recording purposes this discussion is much more useful. I prefer my Millennia TD1 for direct recording. I've used a countryman many times in situations where I am going into an analog board and that just works. As for back ups I carry a K&K pure XLR pre and a Radial under my car seat for emergencies.
One of my prerequisites when buying a bass amp is that it has a really good DI, I love the Glockenklang stuff all around great. Most live venues don't have good enough sound to warrant a REDDI or something else, I wish they did. One of the better clubs I play in has a Midas board, macrotech amps and high end JBL line arrays and I use the DI on my Glock head and they love it. I have heard what the bass sounds like out front and I can tell you carrying my Millennia TD1 is not worth it, although I avoid whirlwind if I see them laying around.
I realize for those playing without an amp and for recording purposes this discussion is much more useful. I prefer my Millennia TD1 for direct recording. I've used a countryman many times in situations where I am going into an analog board and that just works. As for back ups I carry a K&K pure XLR pre and a Radial under my car seat for emergencies.
Jake, don't you have a Demeter 201 preamp? I thought that's what you recorded your album with a long time ago, the one with a Song for Judd on it? (Great album, btw, thanks!) Why don't you use your Demeter's DI?
There's a lot of good info on Radial's site about DIs.
Here's an article comparing a few DI boxes, including the J48 and the Countryman:
Invalid Link Removed
It's probably a little biased but it has good general information.
Here's an article on passive VS active DI's for bass:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
I've been using the J48 for about 1 year now for all my live shows. I love it because of it's durability, tone, and simplicity. I've never found a situation where I didn't have access to phantom power, so I'm not too concerned with powering it. Once I read the info on it's internal rail voltages and headroom and all that, it makes it hard to to consider running a DI from a 9V battery anyway.
Good luck in your decision-making!
Here's an article comparing a few DI boxes, including the J48 and the Countryman:
Invalid Link Removed
It's probably a little biased but it has good general information.
Here's an article on passive VS active DI's for bass:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
I've been using the J48 for about 1 year now for all my live shows. I love it because of it's durability, tone, and simplicity. I've never found a situation where I didn't have access to phantom power, so I'm not too concerned with powering it. Once I read the info on it's internal rail voltages and headroom and all that, it makes it hard to to consider running a DI from a 9V battery anyway.
Good luck in your decision-making!
- Apr 29, 2003
- 9,074
- 9,790
- Disclosures
- Contributor- Bass Musician Magazine | Marketing Manager- Trickfish Amplification
Hey thanks man! Yes, I was using a Demeter HBP-1 for that, as well as mic'ing my tri112 and tri110. That pre had a great DI (a jensen IIRC) but I've since simplified and gone to smaller lighter heads for traveling. That was a killer preamp though!!! I still think its easily among the best pre's for under a grand.
- Apr 29, 2003
- 9,074
- 9,790
- Disclosures
- Contributor- Bass Musician Magazine | Marketing Manager- Trickfish Amplification
yeah, Demeter's tube DI is pretty sweet. Every now and again they pop up used for a great price too! I've had good luck with Aguilars Tube DI, and I was pleasantly surprised with the ampeg tube DI too.
Radial makes some really nice gear for the money but I'm not sure that technical comparison tells the entire story. Reading that you'd think countryman was in the business of making fuzz boxes!
I can't say much about anything else, but I'd like to humbly suggest the Countryman for the OP.
I got a used one (here) for $110 shipped, and it makes my '78 Jazz sound like pure SEX. That could be the bass, but who cares? The combo is beautiful.
I've been recording an album, and though I have several basses and various ways to record them, the Jazz into the Countryman wins hands-down, every time.
I got a used one (here) for $110 shipped, and it makes my '78 Jazz sound like pure SEX. That could be the bass, but who cares? The combo is beautiful.
I've been recording an album, and though I have several basses and various ways to record them, the Jazz into the Countryman wins hands-down, every time.
Enough signal (in this case) is all about what you are plugging it in to. A passive device like a transformer will impart a "tone" because it isn't linear, and you will have some loss because it is an inductive connection, with no continuity at DC. Jensen has some really great designs for audio transformers, so that is a nice upgrade over a generic audio transformer. But that is how DIs have been mad and used, very successfully, for ages. It will be fine with a passive bass.
This is the problem with discussing a piece of gear "in a vacuum"... The way you make a passive device that gets you from high impedance unbalanced to low impedance balanced is with a transformer. It will handle the impedance transformation as well as the "balun" function. This is the classic solution to matching a high impedance inductive source to a low impedance input: The magic of the inductive transformer. Active DIs use a buffer amp along with the transformer, or they can use an op-amp/FET device's impedance matching and buffer amplification abilities. You also see a lot of mic pre's with high Z inputs, and you are getting DI function along with an adjustable gain stage, and sometime you even get a compressor or EQ along with it, and maybe you can select pre or post FX for the output.... Does it provide DI (direct inject) function? YES. The problem arises in the "real world" where you may cause a lot of problems with the FOH setup if you start running some active device with a lot of gain, or potential gain (when you decide to tweak it mid set).
But in most scenarios I'd rather have my tone sorted out before the DI and just be worried about getting that tone to its destination without losing too much. If you have a 15 year old 200 foot snake of questionable lineage and repair between your big dollar DI and the board then you have some other issue to worry about
I've been doing considerable research on phantom powered and passive DIs recently, including testing and measurement of several different ones. Here's how I see it:
If you have passive or low-output instruments you should probably avoid the JDI. For passive instruments its 10k input impedance is too low and will load them down. Now, some folks like that effect (rolled off top end) and if that's the case, fair enough. The Jensen transformer in the JDI has a turns ratio 0f 12:1, which means that the output will be attenuated by 22dB, so it's not ideal with low output instruments either. I have experienced this with the JDI and certain instruments. The level was low enough at the console that I had to crank the input gain to levels where noise became an issue. Switching to a J48 cured that.
The J48 actually boosts 6dB from input to output so gain is not an issue. Its input impedance is a surprisingly low 220k which means it might load down some passive instruments and it won't work well with piezos. Other than that, no real flies on the J48 other than the fact that it has electrolytic caps for output coupling and that it's electronically balanced rather than transformer balanced. I will make no bones about me having a personal preference for transformer balancing. Its distortion performance is admirable though my measurements suggest that it isn't quite as good as Radial says it is. They also suggest that the Countryman isn't as bad in that department as Radial says it is, either...
The Countryman is the industry standard for a reason. It works well and is uber-reliable. It attenuates signal by 10dB from input to output. It has 10M input impedance so it won't load down any kind of pickup. It has more inherent distortion than the J48 but it's all lower order stuff (mostly second) that is typical from class-A FET circuits and is sonically benign, IMO. My (and plenty of others') impression of the Type-85 is that it's quite transparent so I wouldn't be concerned about the distortion spec.
Another possibility is the BSS AR-133. I haven't been able to get my hands on one to test but I have used them before. They're transformer balanced, which I like, and quite clean. I think they attenuate by about 10dB as well.
If you have passive or low-output instruments you should probably avoid the JDI. For passive instruments its 10k input impedance is too low and will load them down. Now, some folks like that effect (rolled off top end) and if that's the case, fair enough. The Jensen transformer in the JDI has a turns ratio 0f 12:1, which means that the output will be attenuated by 22dB, so it's not ideal with low output instruments either. I have experienced this with the JDI and certain instruments. The level was low enough at the console that I had to crank the input gain to levels where noise became an issue. Switching to a J48 cured that.
The J48 actually boosts 6dB from input to output so gain is not an issue. Its input impedance is a surprisingly low 220k which means it might load down some passive instruments and it won't work well with piezos. Other than that, no real flies on the J48 other than the fact that it has electrolytic caps for output coupling and that it's electronically balanced rather than transformer balanced. I will make no bones about me having a personal preference for transformer balancing. Its distortion performance is admirable though my measurements suggest that it isn't quite as good as Radial says it is. They also suggest that the Countryman isn't as bad in that department as Radial says it is, either...
The Countryman is the industry standard for a reason. It works well and is uber-reliable. It attenuates signal by 10dB from input to output. It has 10M input impedance so it won't load down any kind of pickup. It has more inherent distortion than the J48 but it's all lower order stuff (mostly second) that is typical from class-A FET circuits and is sonically benign, IMO. My (and plenty of others') impression of the Type-85 is that it's quite transparent so I wouldn't be concerned about the distortion spec.
Another possibility is the BSS AR-133. I haven't been able to get my hands on one to test but I have used them before. They're transformer balanced, which I like, and quite clean. I think they attenuate by about 10dB as well.
Most active DIs aren't transformer coupled. Most of them are coupled out by electrolytic capacitors, which in my opinion is the greater of the two evils.
A good transformer will give you good linearity (and benign sounding non-linearity), electrical isolation and perfectly balanced output impedance. You can get exceptional linearity with an electronically balanced circuit but electrolytic caps tend to add their own colourations (not so benign, IMO). You don't get isolation and it's exceedingly hard to get perfectly balanced output impedances. Equal impedance on each output conductor is very important. Unequal impedances will reduce the Common Mode Rejection capabilities of whatever preamplifier the device is connected to on the other end.
Transformers inherently do this perfectly because of their virtual ground point property.
I've been doing considerable research on phantom powered and passive DIs recently, including testing and measurement of several different ones. Here's how I see it:
If you have passive or low-output instruments you should probably avoid the JDI. For passive instruments its 10k input impedance is too low and will load them down. Now, some folks like that effect (rolled off top end) and if that's the case, fair enough. The Jensen transformer in the JDI has a turns ratio 0f 12:1, which means that the output will be attenuated by 22dB, so it's not ideal with low output instruments either. I have experienced this with the JDI and certain instruments. The level was low enough at the console that I had to crank the input gain to levels where noise became an issue. Switching to a J48 cured that.
The J48 actually boosts 6dB from input to output so gain is not an issue. Its input impedance is a surprisingly low 220k which means it might load down some passive instruments and it won't work well with piezos. Other than that, no real flies on the J48 other than the fact that it has electrolytic caps for output coupling and that it's electronically balanced rather than transformer balanced. I will make no bones about me having a personal preference for transformer balancing. Its distortion performance is admirable though my measurements suggest that it isn't quite as good as Radial says it is. They also suggest that the Countryman isn't as bad in that department as Radial says it is, either...
The Countryman is the industry standard for a reason. It works well and is uber-reliable. It attenuates signal by 10dB from input to output. It has 10M input impedance so it won't load down any kind of pickup. It has more inherent distortion than the J48 but it's all lower order stuff (mostly second) that is typical from class-A FET circuits and is sonically benign, IMO. My (and plenty of others') impression of the Type-85 is that it's quite transparent so I wouldn't be concerned about the distortion spec.
Another possibility is the BSS AR-133. I haven't been able to get my hands on one to test but I have used them before. They're transformer balanced, which I like, and quite clean. I think they attenuate by about 10dB as well.
Excellent! While the tech stuff is over my head, it seems your conclusion is similar to mine. If you have an active instrument with a reasonable output level, there is nothing 'better' than a good passive DI, particularly the Radial JDI.
For everything else, it would be the Countryman for me!
