Let me be Direct...!

[jpleong]

I'm looking into the DI Box market to outfit my project studio and live-sound jobs. I'm mostly concerned with using them live -for now. I'm looking at two price brackets, lower-end (<$90) for now and upper-end (>$100) when I can afford it. What I'm considering, are the following:

Budget:
Behringer DI 100
Samson S-Direct
Pro Co's various offerings
Whirlwind's various offerings

Gourmet:
Countryman's various offerings (or just one?)
BSS's AR-133
LR Baggs Para DI (since I play acoustic guitar, this would be ideal for my personal use)

From my selection, you can probably tell I'm trying to avoid anything that requires a seperate AC cord and anything that has multiple DI's-in-one. My experiences have mostly been with the Pro Co series (way back when they were all black) and the active DODs (never been a fan of "dud") but unfortunately, I was a mere live-performer then, and never had the opportunity to critically listen to what came out of the box.

If you have it, give me lots of input (and your own suggestions too!). Active vs Passive, switching options, warranty (always important), etc...

This ain't too easy a topic to find written about in reviews, but it's a critical part of the soundchain. Any insight would be well received!

(also posted in the Noise Gate forum)
JP

[michaelhoddy]

The Countryman Type 85 active DI sounds great. I use them all the time. Yesterday I played a show at a large venue, and the sound company (EAW KF750's. Yum!) used the BSS active DI's, which also sounded very nice.

[DAS]

Depending upon what you are trying to use it with you may really like one of the Summit or Avalon pieces as well. For example, on bass (my main instrument) all of the items on your list (yes, I've really used them all) pale in comparison to these. They are just so much warmer and fatter sounding - of course, this comes at a price...!

[jpleong]

Oh so tempting, DAS... but the Avalons and Summits require power cables, which I'm trying to avoid at this moment (never know what the next venue's power situation will be like). For the studio, though... man... they do sound good. That U5 would look just smashing sitting on my desk :)

JP