Active Di Box With Active Pickups

Active di units require a power source via batteries or a standard ac outlet connection and may contain the option for phantom power use.

Active di box with active pickups.

An active di box includes a preamplifier to provide a stronger signal and higher input impedance. Some people claim to prefer the para driver difor bass though it s more focused on. Direct box active is best for instruments with passive pickups especially acoustic instruments. The pz di is a high performance specialized active direct box designed to accommodate acoustic and orchestral instruments with a selectable input impedance that can accommodate magnetic pickups or piezo transducers and a variable low cut filter.

These days there are excellent passive and active di boxes. Active di units an active di unit contains a preamplifier. Active direct boxes are in fact preamplifiers whose primary function is to provide higher input impedance than that of a transformer to drive instruments with low level signals. Direct box passive is best for balancing the signal of instruments with active electronics but still performs extremely well on passive pickups by producing a frequency range that exceeds the bandwidth of most passive di boxes on the market.

And active dis can be designed to be extremely quiet hi fi and transparent tonally. The direct box active can also operate in passive mode. Generally speaking an active di gives you more signal and that means an extended high end. The circuitry onboard active dis requires power which can come via batteries dedicated power supplies.

This type of di was originally designed to provide an extra gain to boost the weak output of some passive single coil pickups but the extra gain is great for driving long cable runs and many modern active dis include advanced signal routing capabilities and higher headroom than their passive counterparts making them an excellent choice for keyboards and instruments with active pickups. And vice versa the astounding headroom of a transformer when driven by an active system typically higher levels. The reasoning is the frequency alteration of a transformer load on a passive pickup. An active instrument could clip an active di in some cases.

An active box clears this up with higher impedance inputs. This means that it can handle lower level signals and still sound good. For example if you were using a passive di to send an old fender bass to the console its single coil pickup had to drive amp transformer mic splitter transformer and a few hundred feet of cable. If you use active pickups you might want to audition them first.