An active DI box offers the best solution - as long as it has the same high-quality construction as the Palmer River havel Active DI Box. The havel's low-noise active circuitry allows a higher input impedance than a passive DI box. This means the sound of the instrument is captured without treble or bass losses. High-level input impedance is especially important in interaction with the magnetic pickups in electrical guitars, electric basses and electromechanical electric pianos (e.g. Rhodes), as well as with (passive) piezo pickups for acoustic instruments. However, the Palmer havel is also very well suited to synthesisers and other electronic keyboards, since it offers enough headroom to handle even high-level inputs without unwanted distortion.
Of course, the Palmer havel features a THRU output to pass the input signal on to the instrument amplifier. With 30 dB of pre-attenuation activated, the Palmer havel can also be looped in between the amplifier output and the loudspeaker, if you want to include the sound of the amplifier instead of the “raw” instrument signal.
The balanced, low-impedance output signal from the Palmer havel is resistant to interference, which enables long cable runs without any loss of sound quality. Thanks to the built-in transformer, the XLR output is galvanically isolated. Any hum loops that may occur can easily be remedied by pressing the ground lift switch. For a power supply, a 48V phantom power unit or a standard 9V battery can be used.
