Active vs Passive DI Boxes: What Difference Do They ACTUALLY Make? 

Those piezo boxes are insane sounding. Thanks for convincing me to get one for my mandolins and violins.

7:47 those are some sick right hand skills!

Dude! Rufus Guitar Shop is a killer shop. Nice work.

Thanks Jay! Great job!

Never heard of a Piezo. Not that I need one right now but it is good to know. Thank for the upload, good info.

Super clear and to the point. Thanks! .. oh and your playing is amazing ;)

Wow,You don't need a DI box. Because you already playing these instruments so well. You are killing this 🔥Good Job Jay.

Useful demo and great playing!!

Thanks Jay! Doing research for my church, very helpful stuff here, God bless!

My dude and my new co-producer!!!!!!!!! Yes sir I'll definitely be in touch soon. Overall this is a great tutorial!!!

Great video mon! Must admit I didn't have a clue what difference passive/active made, all mine are active, but now I do, and my shoppinglist now consists of passive stuff 🙂Cheers!

Great video! very informative. Needed this one

This helped me a lot. Thank you 🙏

very helpful and informative video for a convoluted subject. Thank you!!

good video. very instructive !

Top notch DI review in and impressively succinct.

Thanks for sharing.🐨

Excellent!

Great info

Thank you for the helpful video

Great video! It's better to use passive or active di box when using guitar pedals?

Great comparison of the radial line. PZdi sounds good too!

great info 👍🏾

very good review

i was not expecting my boy to pull out a banjo

hi Jay, i have an apollo twin audio interface wich is pretty good overall. will it make any sense to buy an active radial DI to improve my bass guitar sound passing through the Instrument insert of the audio interface? i mean do you think plugging a bass on the instrument insert of the apollo is sufficient to get a good energetic sound or is it that a good DI would even improve that sound? thanks

Great ....thank's

Radial DI's for life! 🙌 They make tons of great equipment aside from just DIs -- they also have the best ab/y splitter I have ever used (always on my board), and I used the Bassbone OD and V2 for years and loved them -- silky smooth high end and packed with endless utility. I switched to a Le Bass by Two Notes now though for the crispy *and* warm tube tones (I love it, killer preamp), but I still prefer tossing that preamp into a passive Radial JDI (as opposed to using the perfectly good built-in DI w/cabsim in the Le Bass) as it still sounds marginally better -- for all the reasons you stated, including the nice flat tonal response and musical semi-compressed quality the JDI imparts on a signal when pushed. But I mainly use the Radial JDI as a go-to specifically because the Jensen transformers used keep the signal as noise-free as possible (EMI, RFI, ground loops, other mysterious audio gremlins, etc.). Those audio gremlins can always be a problem when dealing with any giant floor/pedal rig (even when using a good pedal power supply & power conditioning for all my other studio gear on top of that!), but with the JDI or Stagebug SB6 for that matter (passive isolation transformers for TS/TRS inputs) you can combat a ton of weird noise issues in the studio before you ever have to resort to breaking out the ol' noisegate 😫 Tl;dr Radial is awesome! Wonderful gear, always built like a tank. Good video as always! Great tones and concise explanations. Keep grooving 👍

What do you think would be the best DI for modelers?

Should I use a passive DI in conjunction with an acoustic box like the Fishman Aura or the Red Eye ?

I have a muling h1 magnetic handpan pickup. I've been advised to also get a DI Box but forgot to clarify whether it needs to be active or passive. I notice now there are 2 types of JDI boxes, passive direct Box and stereo so not sure which I need.

I think of Di boxes as being more relevant to LIVE performances in venues.

@JayLeonardJ you said i can use any of them for an active-piezo pick up. i have a semi-hollow baritone guitar with an active under-bridge piezo pickup (lr baggs and i use battery for it so i guess its active). to me it sounds a little bit quacky and the bass character of baritone is not really emphasised. i want to buy a radial stagebug piezo di-box. i wish it to fix those problems i ve mentioned. it is active though. i will be in a recording session and still cant figure this problem out. which di-box would you use in my situation? my answer to this is a hard yes to active piezo di-box because theres still 'quack' in my tone and i hate it. would it be problematic by any means though? struggling very hard mister. please help me.

I heard somewhere that the PZ-DI is basically just a J48 with some additional features. Is this accurate? I have an acoustic-electric and a passive electric, should I just get the PZ-DI to use for both or is there still a reason to do a J48 for the electric guitar?

JLJ I upgraded an old Guild and the tech (who played with BTO at one point) suggested maybe not go active and get a LR Baggs or similar preamp. He thought it was better to manage the sound off the acoustic, not on the accoustic, at least for this retrofit guitar. I wonder if the piezo and passive DI isn’t maybe the best possible route to that acoustic sound we love. By the way, I tried an IR on that troublesome Guild, it worked pretty good.

Hi, great video! If you have an acoustic guitar with onboard preamp like Taylor es2 , I think Active di would be better, am I right? Having an onboard preamp can I use a preamp di pedal? Or the preamp pedal is better suited for acoustic guitar without onboard preamp. Thanks for your help!

hi brill video I'm using an effects pedal what's the best to use passive or active thanks again

5:40 does this guitar have pasive piezo pickup or active piezo pickup? Does it take 9V battery?

I've got a keyboard that I use the headphone out into my usb interface. Even with the volume maxxed out, it comes in quiet. Should I be looking for an active DI box to solve this?

thanks! do I even need a DI box if I'm plugging into an instrument input on my interface?

I hope you can also make a video about the parts of the D.I box especially the ins and out of it. Also what D.I would you suggest for a board running a stereo signal?

can you review the stagebugs? or is it just better to go to the Radial J _ _ ones?

That is why its redundant to get a d.i. for an acoustic amp, unless its through the vocal channel.

Sir can I use the DI Box to mixer with non hi-z?

Can I use a DI box with a DJ set with powered speakers and which one “Active or Passive “?

can you use active bass pickup to a radial pro 48?

What were the setting differences when you A/B the Radial DI Piezo?

Uhhh, why haven't more of us been enlightened to the piezi DI boxes? It seems there are a lot of acoustic players who had to trade up to matrix systems, microphones, or just put up with a quacky tone when there has been a solution....

The way you played the passive DI was completely different to how you played the active and piezo.

wow, the piezzo was real difference

Difficult to compare when you switch from finger picking to pick on different boxes

7:33

I still venture that the piezo DI sounds nowhere near as good as a mic would on that guitar.

6:35 so a preamp...

DUde you were cheating! With the passive DI you did Finger Picking, while you had a pick with the active

Piezo is nothing but garbage 100% of the time. Even untrained people who don't care much about sound will ask "why does his guitar sound so horrible?" And the answer is almost always piezo. Literally any other pickup is a better option.