The 11 Best Passive Direct Injection Boxes (2023 reviews)

There are several advantages of having a passive direct injection box. Let’s take you step by step, type by type, and find the best passive direct injection box for you.

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Our Top Picks:

Best overall: Buy: Behringer Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

Best With feedback: Buy: Pyle Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

Best With No AUDIBLE noise: Buy: Radial Engineering Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

Best For PRESENTATIONS: Buy: Hosa Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

Best For home recording: Buy: Donner Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

Best For Stereo sources: Buy: Mackie Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

Best For Professional Use: Buy: ART Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

Best For drum: Buy: DBX Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

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

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

Best Sound Quality: Buy: Whirlwind Passive Direct Injection Box READ REVIEW

Best overall: Behringer Passive Direct Injection Box

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Here, we review box that manages to win our hearts. It's the behringer passive direct injection box and it's widely considered as one of best box you can buy. The world over, the ot-2 provides superior signal isolation from local ac and rf hum, and the ultimate in impedance matching. It's good for new devices, watchout for static on old instruments. The "Ground Lift" function signifcantly reduces the noise and the rest can be taken out with a simple noise gate, on your pedal board or a VST based gate. It's durable, passive (no batteries) and works like a champ.

The advantage is this direct injection box converts a 1/4 inch guitar cable line out to a microphone cable and xrl balanced line giving you more to work with as far as incoming signal on the recorders input provided it accepts a common stage mike cable. The product feels really nice quality and the size is really nice for bringing it with you at all times in a guitar case.

• Handles speaker level input for recording, as well direct input from guitar
• Simple to use and for most applications will deliver excellent results
• Excellent for a simple basement setup

Best With feedback: Pyle Passive Direct Injection Box

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The pyle passive direct injection box should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. Sending a balanced speaker line from an unbalanced line out mixer, this device makes a balanced XLR feed. It is a great di box to convert headphone signals over to xlr signals to run a pair of powered monitors or separate amplifier for a sub mix. It provides attenuation to interface a line or instrument output with a balanced microphone input. It is built to be used with signals alike for example stereo keyboards or similar.

It's really just a pusher for the button which is internal, but in pushing it back on, it is now more recessed than the other one on that box. It is a dual channel di which can run two mono or a stereo setup. The switch is really cheezy mechanically. It is great for any stereo.

• A must tool for any working musician or audio tech
• Lot of satisfied buyers

Best With No AUDIBLE noise: Radial Engineering Passive Direct Injection Box

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Best part: radial engineering passive direct injection box costs comparatively low and it is available to ship in 24 hours. Mic's and line-level devices (like keyboards & CD players) have low impedance. It allows you to connect a piece of equipment that has only line level outputs, such as a keyboard, into the mic input of a mixing board. It allows you to use a monitor and also the main console speaker. It is quiet and clean and doesn't color the sound.

One thing that's great with this is being able to plug a guitar tuner into the THRU connection. The active pickups on your bass should be producing a line-level signal that can just pass through the di and be fine. This preserves the sound quality very well when running with 300ft of cable. It is perfect for live or studio performances.

• Must have for active emg pickups
• Good sound quality, minimal coloration, handy features
• Lot of satisfied buyers

Best For PRESENTATIONS: Hosa Passive Direct Injection Box

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The hosa passive direct injection box is specially designed for your regular usage and has all useful features. It is a very well-made, heavy gauge, steel box with standard-sized holes for connectors/switches (like Neutrik), and is very nicely finished. It has a design for a di box using a jensen jt-db-e transformer. This splits the signal cleanly with little appreciable additional noise. This almost makes it sound like a person could run a speaker cable from a power amp to this box. It features too, so it's a wash.

The Gain controls on the soundboard can be kept much lower, with volume being controlled primarily by the channel volume sliders, as it should be. It's "adequate" if connected just right and you don't need a 1/4" output.

• Absolutely clean and silent operation, no hissing or buzzing
• Good product, solid and well built
• New and hot release

Best For home recording: Donner Passive Direct Injection Box

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The donner passive direct injection box's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. This direct box is durable, sounds great, and won't break the bank. It is the magic of electromagnetic induction. It is augmented with a ground lift switch that lifts pin-1 on the xlr for quiet, professional results. The output impedance of the di box is directly correlated to the number of windings in the output coils, but only slightly correlated to the impedance of the input coil, so there is no need for a switch or a separate coil to accept different inputs.

This direct box does NOT have noise suppression built in. The sound quality is really good, and won't break the bank. It is smaller to make it more portable.

• Well made and built pretty solidly
• Inexpensive and straightforward, will definitely recommend to anyone else starting out with home recording
• Power supply and no battery needed

Best For Stereo sources: Mackie Passive Direct Injection Box

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The mackie passive direct injection box should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. If you are using your own board, this is a cool piece of hardware and has a lot of nice features like the 15db pad, the ability to combine two sources or use the second 1/4" jack as a "through" jack. It feels like a solid little box that is well made. It can use as stereo, two inputs with separate xlr outs, or one input with two separate xlrs out.

This is a line-level signal converter to an XLR output. They make it easy to get clean, low-noise audio to a mixer no matter what instrument you are using. It features increased headroom and distortion-free operation. It is perfect fit for keyboards.

• Very solidly built, quiet, with many useful features
• More buzzing sound from the computer through the mixer console
• Solid, flexible, affordable active direct box
• Tons of flexibility, small enough to fit on a pedal board, and quiet

Best For Professional Use: ART Passive Direct Injection Box

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Best part: art passive direct injection box costs comparatively low and it is available to ship in 24 hours. This DI box is built like a tank, very solid. It is normally used to interface an electric guitar to a microphone input of a pre-amp/mixer because the mixer input supplies a phantom voltage for a microphone, which would damage the guitar pickups. It is a rock solid, roadworthy di for connection of the outputs of electronic musical instruments (or other audio sources) to the balanced inputs of mixer consoles and other balanced inputs. It is also used as an interface between a computer audio out to the mixer input, for the same reasons.

The attenuation set up is accurate and simple to use.

• Problems, no increased noise, no noticeable frequency degradation
• Sounds very quiet as in, you can't hear it
• Sounds great and built like a tank

Best For drum: DBX Passive Direct Injection Box

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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’s a very versatile passive DI box, that adds little if any coloring to the sound. 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.

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. 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.

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

Best For electronic drum: Samson Passive Direct Injection Box

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We know from years of feedback from readers, customers and amazon sellers, what most people want in a convenient and appropriate box. The samson passive direct injection box is exactly that - it's a simple box that hits all the right notes. The Samson MD2 Pro Stereo is another great, heavy duty tank of a DI box. It protects all the MD2 pro’s internal connections, switches and solder joints from failure, ensuring quiet, reliable performance. It provides a very nice clean signal which works well with the amp sims.

The MD2 Pro features a 3-position 0dB/-10dB/-20dB attenuation switch for each input to toggle between line and speaker level signals, as well as a Stereo/Mono sum switch, merging both inputs to each output. The 1/8" selectable sum switch is super convenient along with the attenuation switch for hotter signals. Its chassis is rugged and will hold up to countless jobs, and also includes an attenuation switch to add versatility for different signals.

If you're looking for a super tough super durable imp 2, you will be very happy with this.

• An absolutely gorgeous clean signal comes out
• Very clean sound and bone head simple to use
• Great feature and easy to use
• Your natural tones will sound gorgeous

Best For playing worship music: Rapco Horizon Passive Direct Injection Box

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The rapco horizon passive direct injection box is satisfactory and appropriate and fits well with your daily usage. It is great for playing worship music through a church pa system on a small budget. It offers reliable input jacks as well as a loop-through 1/4 inch jack. It requires an attenuator, conversion cables and setting the camcorder audio level to MANUAL. 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.

Their church uses these converters for keyboards, acoustical and electric guitars to play back through the main speakers in the sanctuary. It works well and is quite inexpensive. 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
• Features 1/4 inch input and xlr male output
• Good investment for long term

Best Sound Quality: Whirlwind Passive Direct Injection Box

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For a low asking price, whirlwind passive direct injection box has managed to overwhelm their customers by packing as many features as they could. This microphonic quality becomes more apparent when you run distortion or other amplification after the di box. This unit does the job very well and eliminates distortion. It can be used in church setting every sunday. This unit also has two built-in pads, to provide two levels of attenuation for hot input signals, in case you need them. It is a bit light weight.

• Very strong, sturdy box with ground or ground lift settings
• All of the standard options including ground lift and pad
• Solid construction and a great brand name to stand behind it
• Great sound, no feedback, tough little boxes