The 7 Best Active Direct Boxes (2023 reviews)

We consider a active direct box to be a worthy investment in the long run. We are here to help you choose the right one for your purposes from all the best available products in market today.

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Our Top Picks:

Best overall: Buy: Radial Engineering Passive Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For price: Buy: Samson Active Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best With EQ: Buy: Radial Engineering Active Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For microphone: Buy: DBX Active Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For home recording: Buy: DBX Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For Ipad: Buy: ART Active Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For computer: Buy: SGPRO Active Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best overall: Radial Engineering Passive Direct Box

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Here, we review box that manages to win our hearts. It's the radial engineering passive direct box and it's widely considered as one of best box you can buy. This is a direct box that sends a boosted direct signal to a sound board for live shows or a recording console. It takes a standard 14" mono cable male jack (think guitar or microphone cable) as input and converts it to a balanced XLR (male) pronged output. It cleanly and accurately represents the input given to it for live and studio settings.

One thing that's great with this is being able to plug a guitar tuner into the THRU connection. It is quiet and clean and doesn't color the sound. It is good for longer runs from an instrument to the sound board as the 1/4" is only good for shorter runs. It is perfect go-to for all applications.

• Good sound quality, minimal coloration, handy features
• Built like a tank, sounds clean, simple and effective
• Must have for active emg pickups

Best For price: Samson Active Direct Box

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The samson active direct box might be a relatively new release, but it's still nothing short of impressive this year. The Samson MDA1 active direct box is a rugged direct box that can be powered by a 9v battery or phantom power. It runs very clean and has a durable housing made of metal and is great for live sound and recording studio applications such as guitars and basses and operates on either batteries or phantom power. It’s quiet with multiple instruments and amps.

This is a direct box that takes instrument input and converts it to a balanced XLR. It can be used in country music concert hall. It’s a DI box with a bit of a kick. If you want to record a clean signal and the amplified signal at the same time, this is what you need.

• Solid weight and construction, db pad switch is a must have
• Rock solid, transparent and ultra boost
• Runs right into the stage mixer no issues

Best With EQ: Radial Engineering Active Direct Box

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If you often find yourself confused about appropriate and satisfactory box, radial engineering active direct box is your end point. It really sounds good, natural, and musical. The sound of this box trounces them all with clean, clear, pure tone. These are simply a transformer that transforms the input signal to an output signal. It takes the scrape-y (guitar) or clack-y (bass) edge of the direct recordings and makes them sit a lot better in the mix.

The construction of the box itself is nothing short of the highest quality. It's the type of great sound that you notice more when it's not there than when it is there. It works great and kills two birds with one stone. This is even more satisfying when running sequences.

• Great sound, built like a tank
• Love to use it on acoustic guitars
• Sounds great and very natural, no hiss or humming at all
• Sb-6 isolator to kill the noise spreads from effects

Best For microphone: DBX Active Direct Box

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Not everyone likes to purchase box for their daily purpose, but the dbx active direct box would be an anomoly. It’s really meant for a DJ mixer/controller. It features such as level and impedance matching, phantom power indication, signal pass through, and ground lift functionality. It is used to connect unbalanced outputs to balanced inputs. There is a bit of volume drop on the speakers, but this is easily overcome. It is great for dj use. It takes a bit of twiddling to get the settings correct, but once you have it, then you never should have to change it.

• New and hot release
• One of the new comers and featured product

Best For home recording: DBX Direct Box

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It’s a very versatile passive DI box, that adds little if any coloring to the sound. It comes with their bullet-proof construction, and extraordinary audio performance to rival their looks, and finally there’s a direct box worthy of the dbx name. It is for the guitar amp, there is a direct wired thru output, so that you can hook the amp's speaker output up to this box's input, and plug the amp's speaker into the thru output. The switches are protected by the cast metal housing so they shouldn't be damaged by performers kicking, stepping on, or otherwise abusing the device.

All of this sits atop a solid, stable footprint, that will keep the box from being dragged around the stage, and the unique contoured underside allows secure stacking of multiple units.

• Excellent solution to several recording problems
• Rugged design featuring stackable chassis with durable rubber foot
• Include a pad switch that accommodates instrument, line and even speaker level signals

Best For Ipad: ART Active Direct Box

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Art line of box come in a pretty wide variety of styles, so you can definitely find one that suits your individual preferences and needs. This box has two individual channels. It is designed to take line level inputs (guitar, effects generator, for example) and convert them to a microphone class (balanced) input, so you can play your instruments through a pa system. It makes it "powered" and the signal going to the mixing board is boosted or hotter. It's also good to use for having a local amp (fed from the front side passthrough jack) as well as feeding a combined PA amp.

This is exactly like two separate single channel DI boxes, so if you've got the right splitters, you could use it for a stereo input/output. The input attenuator switches allow for a wide range of signal levels and the input thru jacks allow for tapping off of your signal chain.

• Works on 9v battery or phantom power
• Very quite and lean sounding direct box
• Well built and runs great off of the phantom power from the mixer

Best For computer: SGPRO Active Direct Box

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The sgpro active direct box is satisfactory and appropriate and fits well with your regular usage. The di box is a must for your computer recording, bands, and performance of having. It is compact, light, solidly built and just gets the job done. The output side has a phase switch which can help if you have a signal 180 degrees out of phase. It is great way to get a direct line level signal into a mixer and split it. For problematic venues, the ground lift can greatly reduce noise and it's recessed in one side so it doesn't get accidentally pressed. It's that easy, and the sound/signal is both strong and clean, it's wonderful. The phase switch button is a nice addition too. It's recommended for live sound and permanent installation of an instrument level signal.

• Coil pickups and extend long driving cable runs
• Level equipment such as keyboards and electronic instruments
• Microphone cable for open mics, with no added noise
• Works great, lots of useful features