The 7 Best Powered DI Boxes (2023 reviews)

We consider a powered di 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: Behringer Powered DI Box READ REVIEW

Best For price: Buy: Samson Powered DI Box READ REVIEW

Best With EQ: Buy: Radial Engineering Powered DI Box READ REVIEW

Best For signal switching: Buy: Joyo Powered DI Box READ REVIEW

Best For Ipad: Buy: ART Powered DI Box READ REVIEW

Best With cab sim: Buy: Hughes & Kettner Powered DI Box READ REVIEW

Best For computer: Buy: SGPRO Powered DI Box READ REVIEW

Best overall: Behringer Powered DI Box

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The look and feel of this boxes are consistent with the high quality we're used to from the rest of Behringer's lineup. Instrument cables are low power and high impedance, speaker cables are high power, low impedance—so they are opposites. The Gi100 goes way beyond the typical abilities of a di box to give you the sound and performance you’d expect from a super-charged vintage half-stack, plus enough power to have your audience wondering where you hide the amp. It provides impedance and signal matching for the direct connection of instruments to mixers and amplifiers.

The Gi100 active di box gives you all the full-rockin glory of your favorite guitar running through a cranked 4 x 12 cabinet. It is perfect for apartment home recording. Using this box eliminates all the variables of rooms and mic placement, and gives you a solid mic'd cab simulation, which is more than good enough to have your audience wondering where you hide the amp. It is great to use the direct signal for a monitor mix because you can gain the signal out to high heaven, and never have to worry about it feeding back.

• Makes hooking a guitar directly into a mixer sound a ton better
• Provides a very nice natural tone for your daw to work with
• Solid construction and color looks great as well
• Clean sound, works great straight into board from xlr or direct

Best For price: Samson Powered DI Box

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The samson powered di 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. It can be used in a country music concert hall.

• 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 Powered DI Box

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The radial engineering powered di box should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. This unit is a powered unit that requires 48V Phantom power to be on the XLR line to supply the unit with power. Because it is a powered unit and has electronic circuitry they have included some extra isolation to protect the signal and preserve that continuity for the power supply. It features a rail voltage of around 9v which is much higher than comparable active dis. It is capable of peak transients to 9 volts without choking.

These are simply a transformer that transforms the input signal to an output signal. The sound is crystal clear, natural, and boosted. It features a low cut filter button that is used in preventing feedback. It is great for passive guitars or basses.

• Easy to use and highly recommended
• Lot of satisfied buyers

Best For signal switching: Joyo Powered DI Box

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Not everyone likes to purchase box for their daily purpose, but the joyo powered di box would be an anomoly. To have the versatility to either re-amp your guitar or split your signal to amp/daw this thing is great. It provides exceptional sound quality. The passive reamping function allows you to take a pre-recorded bass (or guitar) track and send it through the amplifier, adding a layer of depth and texture to the original recordings. There's no ground buzz or hum present with this box and it provides a VERY clean signal.

The sound pass through is really clear and no frequency interference. It's used for both performance and recording purposes, making it a great investment for any musician or producer. There is a ground lift switch on the front as well as an output level attenuation knob. The active DI is perfectly clean and uncolored. It's like having a superhero on standby, ready to swoop in and tackle any ground loop problems.

• Very well made and works as intended
• Great quality and useful tool in live or recording
• All connections are firm and secure
• Versatile box that will come in handy

Best For Ipad: ART Powered DI Box

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Next on the list, we've got yet another box that manages to win our hearts. It's the art powered di box and it's widely considered as box that has the most suitable features. This box has two individual channels. It has an extremely flat and wide frequency response and can handle high signal levels. 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. If the amplifier you are feeding has phantom power, the ART will run off of that phantom power. 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.

The box has 2 separate inputs and 2 separate outputs so it effectively functions like 2 individual direct boxes. It is delivered to the Art Direct Interface unit via one of the output cables. If it is available, then the dualxdirect will automatically draw its power from the external source. The battery goes in best if you put it in the holder terminals first.

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

Best With cab sim: Hughes & Kettner Powered DI Box

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Next on the list, we've got yet another box that manages to win our hearts. It's the hughes & kettner powered di box and it's widely considered as box that has the most suitable features. It lets you feed a guitar amp’s speaker out, line out or FX send straight into a mixing console’s microphone input. It is designed to go between your amp and speaker, but can also be safely used with the ext. It includes more tonal options and comes with speaker line-level input outputs and speaker simulation controls. The tone is 10x better than any of those multi-effects attempts to simulate a amp/cabinet.

The tone is 10x better than any of those multi-effects attempt to simulate a amp/cabinet. It gives you the ability to tone-shape the cabinet tone you desire. The sound also has a distant sound, not close and clear like the miked signal. You can use this handy little box as a di, so it's sure to become a valuable addition to your rig.

• Great unit for running a silent band practice at home
• Level signals with tonal characteristics of a 4 x 12 " cabinet
• Very useful if you are tired of carrying your heavy guitar amp everywhere

Best For computer: SGPRO Powered DI Box

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The sgpro powered di box might be a relatively new release, but it's still nothing short of impressive this year. The active direct box reduces the impact on sound quality due to unmatching signals from musical instruments with different impedances. It is an excellent unit for stage performance, studio and computer recording, live band music, and daily practice. It runs on 48v phantom power and the ground lift is in a place where it's hard to accidentally bump it. The direct box comes with a switchable pad (-12 db) to prevent excessive gain from overloading the circuitry to accommodate the high output of active pickups and unbalanced line. It is compact, light, solidly built and just gets the job done. It is recommended for live sound and permanent installation. There's a pad on the input to prevent clipping if you are using higher gain inputs.

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