Cheap DI-Box: Palmer or Samson?

[DanLights]

I'm looking at a cheap but decent DI box (so I'm staying away from Behringer or those 10 bucks millenium things), it's main use would be a) to send the backing track from the Iphone into the PA (and with the through out send it also to the drummer's mixer) for live shows, and b) to record an amp while getting a DI, or effectively to split the signal (for example I want to record bass by splitting and getting one clean DI and also getting the DI out of my head at the same time).

Two main options:
http://www.thomann.de/es/samson_sdirect_aktive_dibox.htm
http://www.thomann.de/es/palmer_pan_01.htm

I did read that the Samson was a good choice on the cheap, and my short experience with the brand has been quite good, had a wireless mic and a headphone amp and they performed well. But I've also heard good things about Palmer although not specifically about this DI box. And there's also the fact that the S is active and the P is passive, which I really don't know much about, but I think I loosely understand that if the pickups are passive it's better to use an active DI and viceversa? For now all pickups I'd be dealing with are passive, but when I get outside bands to record you can't tell so I'm not sure what would be the best option if I'm on such a budget and won't buy another one for now.

P.S. I'm looking at Thomann cause I've got a friend making a big purchase this monday and I would be sneaking the DI in there to get free postage.

 

[Ashgarth]

I have a palmer pan02 (active) and it works great, also have a palmer daccapo reamp box, both things are built like tanks and work great!

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Don't know about those two products specifically, but Palmer is a much better brand than Samson.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Moreover the Palmer has a Pad which can be very useful.

 

[DanLights]

Cool, thanks to both of you, I'm definitely inclined towards the Palmer now. Brett, any experience with passive pickups connected to a passive DI? Or would it be safer to just buy the Pan02 which is active? It's only 20 bucks more.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

I have a Radial JDI which is passive (probably the best passive DI on the market... or so they claim, haha). I lent it to a band to record their own guitars and one the guitar player had active pickups and the other had passive. Both sounded great, the one with passive pickups had much (and I mean MUCH) more attack but I'm 99,99% positive it's the pick attack and not the DI.

As a rule of thumb, Behringer, Millenium, Samson and such (...) can be used to monitor (I have a little Samson headphone amp for drummers for instance), but those brands should NEVER be in between your source and your DAW and pass your precious audio through. If you can pay a little more right now, you will not regret it, and ultimately you will end up buying better gear at some point, so getting those cheap brands will cost you more. It's always the same: cheaper is more expensive in the end (ok, this is not true 100% of the time, but more often than not, especially with audio and instruments).

 

[DanLights]

I have a Radial JDI which is passive (probably the best passive DI on the market... or so they claim, haha). I lent it to a band to record their own guitars and one the guitar player had active pickups and the other had passive. Both sounded great, the one with passive pickups had much (and I mean MUCH) more attack but I'm 99,99% positive it's the pick attack and not the DI.

As a rule of thumb, Behringer, Millenium, Samson and such (...) can be used to monitor (I have a little Samson headphone amp for drummers for instance), but those brands should NEVER be in between your source and your DAW and pass your precious audio through. If you can pay a little more right now, you will not regret it, and ultimately you will end up buying better gear at some point, so getting those cheap brands will cost you more. It's always the same: cheaper is more expensive in the end (ok, this is not true 100% of the time, but more often than not, especially with audio and instruments).

Yeah I agree with you, you're right I'll definitely go for the Palmer. An extra question, for anyone, has anyone connected an Iphone or similar source to a DI with success? I mean, with enough level? Passive or active DI box? I guess this is more related to the Backing track thread so I'll ask this there as well.

Just a bit worried cause I've read the Ipods' output is quite low, and maybe the passive DI box will not give it enough level?

 

[Ngoc]

I say you should get the Palmer too.

I have the Palmer PAN01 and it works really great

I read that you can use passive pickups with passive DI boxes with no problems, when you throw a pedal between your guitar and the DI box for correct impendance

 

[RiF]

I have the Palmer PAN01 di-box (and the Daccapo reamp box). Both are great, rugged and very reasonably priced units that I would highly recommend to anybody.
I am using the DI with active or passive pickups.

Just make sure you don't use the most crappy preamp to DI and reamp your guitars, because when DI/reamping, the signal runs TWICE through the preamp (once when DI-ing and then when micing the cab during reamping).

 

[DanLights]

I have the Palmer PAN01 di-box (and the Daccapo reamp box). Both are great, rugged and very reasonably priced units that I would highly recommend to anybody.
I am using the DI with active or passive pickups.

Just make sure you don't use the most crappy preamp to DI and reamp your guitars, because when DI/reamping, the signal runs TWICE through the preamp (once when DI-ing and then when micing the cab during reamping).

Thanks, I already ordered the Pan01, and yeah for recording it will go through a Saffire so the preamps are good, in fact the DI input is probably better sounding than the Palmer, but I'll use the Palmer for live shows constantly.