Active Di Box Vs Passive

Active di units and passive di units.

Active di box vs passive.

Active di boxes require a power source usually batteries or phantom power over an xlr jack. For an in depth look at choosing active or passive direct boxes please check out the free guide on our blog. Passive does not have active electronics and therefore does not require an external power source. They contain a transformer to perform impedance matching and balancing and very little else the strength and impedance of.

The most basic definitions of the two different kinds of di boxes are likely what you d expect. The most obvious difference is that passive di boxes don t need to be powered. In contrast active boxes do have active electronics which are powered by external power sources. Active versus passive di box the di box for direct injection or direct input also known as a direct box is a device who s main basic function is to convert the unbalanced high impedance output of an instrument s signal into a balanced low impedance one which in turn allows longer cable runs without adding noise among other benefits.

Passive dis are ideal for instruments with strong outputs and both their low cost and durability make them the most popular kind of direct box. Passive di boxes are basically just transformers. Typical turns ratio is about 500 1 to match a nominal 50 kω signal source such as the magnetic pickup of an electric guitar to a 100 ω input.