Active Di Box Vs Passive

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.

Active di box vs passive.

The most basic definitions of the two different kinds of di boxes are likely what you d expect. For an in depth look at choosing active or passive direct boxes please check out the free guide on our blog. Active di boxes require a power source usually batteries or phantom power over an xlr jack. The biggest difference between an active di and a passive di is that an active di includes a preamplifier.

Active di units and passive di units. Passive di boxes are basically just transformers. Passive does not have active electronics and therefore does not require an external power source. A passive di unit typically consists of an audio transformer used as a balun.

They contain a transformer to perform impedance matching and balancing and very little else the strength and impedance of. 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. The most obvious difference is that passive di boxes don t need to be powered.