The 7 Best Passive Direct Boxes (2023 reviews)

We consider a passive 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 home recording: Buy: Donner Passive Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For streaming of radio station: Buy: ART Passive Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best With Phantom Power: Buy: Kopul Passive Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For electric Guitar: Buy: generic Passive Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For drum: Buy: Samson Passive Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best For playing worship music: Buy: Rapco Horizon Passive Direct Box READ REVIEW

Best overall: Radial Engineering Passive Direct Box

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The radial engineering passive direct box's high-end materials makes sure that it ages well with use. Whether it's being jostled around in a gig bag or dropped on the floor, this DI box just keeps on working. It is responsive across the entire range and sounds very good. The XLR cable is a balanced cable so the signal going to a PA would be Balanced no matter what. It's pro-studio grade quality, works perfectly, and won't comprise your audio signal in the slightest.

These DI's are built like a tank, no hums, no problems. It also makes wiring easy to use, and most importantly it delivers a clean signal. It is truly an interference and artifact trap.

• Very solid and reliable and great signal quality
• Buzz, no hum, no noise of any kind
• Buzz / hum, quiet as a church mouse
• Very clean, very crisp piano sounds

Best For home recording: Donner Passive Direct Box

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Not everyone likes to purchase box for their daily usage, but the donner passive direct box would be an anomoly. This is a fantastic DI box, perfect for independent recording. It is magical in its ability to handle extreme signal levels with a natural compression that is pleasing to the ears. It comes with tartar sause and it is great as a dual outpt. It’s super simple to use and the parallel output makes it useful if you want to run your guitar into a mixer and amp.

This direct box does NOT have noise suppression built in. It is perfect for traveling between gigs. The ground lift switch is a must and works fine. This box lets you get connected and making noise quickly and easily.

• Well made and built pretty solidly
• More static buzz and no more bass amp
• Good construction well built, easy to install, good job

Best For streaming of radio station: ART Passive Direct Box

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Compared with other box in this category, the art passive direct box has a convenient design. A mixer brings various sound inputs together and outputs one sound mix. The dualzdirect provides two independent high quality totally passive interfaces that let you connect instrument, line, or speaker level signals to a mixer or other balanced inputs through high performance audio isolation transformers. While a number of DI boxes are available this one is simple, has a filter for use on digital devices others don't, and doesn't require phantom. It can be used as an interface between a computer and high-end audio equipment. This direct box gets a lot of use. It also does very well at load matching.

This direct box is incredibly small considering that it houses two channels. They work beautifully for varied applications.

• Low noise and lots of functionality
• 20 db attenuators on each channel which can also be stacked for
• Being passive there are no mismatches due to improper adjustments, and installation is easy

Best With Phantom Power: Kopul Passive Direct Box

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Kopul line of box come in a pretty wide variety of styles, so you can definitely find one that suits your individual preferences and needs. It is a stereo, passive di box designed to bridge the gap between consumer-level audio sources and pro audio destinations. It comes with this unit, you can route the audio of instruments, smartphones, tablets, receivers, and more into mixing consoles or pa systems. This usage lets you split a guitar signal during recording, so you have the amped track in addition to a clean, DI’ed take to use during the mixing stage. These are suitable for instruments such as electric guitars, basses, and keyboards.

• Isolated transformers & aluminum housing | warm & smooth sound
• New and hot release

Best For electric Guitar: generic Passive Direct Box

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The generic passive direct box might be a relatively new release, but it's still nothing short of impressive this year, thanks to multiple price cuts and added new features over the past few months. It can be used in dj applications for converting unbalanced +10 db dj mixer signals to balanced, line-level signals. This allows you to connect your dj mixer to a mixing console and cuts down on noise that can be picked up in longer cable runs.

The 40 high-performance passive direct box lets you connect an unbalanced, high-impedance signal to a balanced, low-impedance input.

• Converts unbalanced to balanced | converts high impedance to low impedance
• One of the new comers and featured product

Best For drum: Samson Passive Direct Box

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The samson passive direct box should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. The Samson MD1 mono passive direct box combines premium sound circuitry with durable, roadworthy construction, providing high. The MD2 Pro’s 2 thru jacks enable you to pass the signals from the inputs to amplifiers or monitors without affecting the original audio. It provides a very nice clean signal which works well with the amp sims. The New metal body makes it way more rugged compared to previous models and is a must have for any club or caf.

The MD1 Pro is a big step forward in quality for Samson direct boxes. Its chassis is rugged and will hold up to countless jobs, and also includes an attenuation switch to add versatility for different. It is extremely quiet with connected devices.

• Very clean sound and bone head simple to use
• Flexible inputs and outputs, built like a tank, and just works well
• 0 db attenuation, makes this sturdy metal unit available for any application

Best For playing worship music: Rapco Horizon Passive Direct Box

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The rapco horizon passive direct box's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. It is great for playing worship music through a church pa system on a small budget. It can be used in stage performance, and home studio. The church uses these converters for keyboards, acoustical and electric guitars to play back through the main speakers in the sanctuary. There is a transformer between the 1/4 and the xlr male out, so when the guitar/instrument signal enters the 1/4, the transformer changes the signal to Low Impedence.

It works well and is quite inexpensive. It requires an attenuator, conversion cables and setting the camcorder audio level to MANUAL. It would highly recommend these for your stereo recording or broadcasting needs when interfacing between a computer and a mixer.

• Awesome for stereo or duel input/output instruments
• Lot of satisfied buyers