BehringerUltra-DI DI20 Professional Active 2-Channel DI-Box/Splitter

Love these DI Boxes. They are 2 channel and love that you can add batteries when phantom power is not available. Will def purcahse again!

Does it add noise? Sure it does. A bit of hiss. Think of tape hiss with the Dolby NR turned on, for those of you old enough to know that sound. Does it cost over $100? Not a chance. This thing has no place in a recording studio, that's for sure, but for a small band playing a gig in a park on a Sunday afternoon? No one will notice the hiss. You're getting two DI channels for under $25! We use these for the bass and guitar players in our church band, and they're great. With the room empty, and PA opened up wide, you can hear a bit of hiss. Add a few dozen people to the room and it disappears completely. Great price point, and we will buy more of these if we need them. The nay-sayers are the pro audio guys, and if you're into pro audio, you're not buying $25 DI boxes, or at least you shouldn't be!

That's what it was: a hunch. I read the specs on this thing and thought, "That might be a handy gizmo to have around." I was thinking of the signal splitting function and the unbalanced to balanced function.As it turned out, my first use for it was to get rid of unwanted hum in my cobbled-together low-budget PA system. For some reason, when I connected a compact PA system to my Peavey board (which was also feeding a guitar amp) there was an unacceptable level of hum that I couldn't get rid of.Then I remembered that I had the Ultra-DI and decided to try it, between the mixer and the PA input. Put in a battery, hit the ground lift switch, and - like magic - the hum was gone. Not diminished, gone!I have used it a couple of times, in Link mode, to connect a guitar to two different amps, one of which had a multi-effects box on the front end. Worked great for that.I haven't had an occasion to use the attenuation function, yet, but have no reason to believe that it won't do what it's supposed to do if I ever do need it.I haven't used it enough to comment on the ultimate battery life, but one 9 v. battery got it through one 2 hr. concert, and there seems to be plenty of juice left in it. Unlike some Behringer gizmos (like their effects pedals), this one has a power switch, which should go a long way to prolonging the battery life.I wouldn't have ordered this, on a hunch [especially in view of the dismaying number of negative reviews of this product], if it had a $90+ price tag, but I was willing to gamble $22.00. I'm glad I did. If it never does anything but cancel hum in an otherwise noisy system, I'll feel as if I've gotten my money's worth.While I'm not a fan of the Behringer effects pedals, I have been pleased with several other Behringer products. I have a VT-50 amp that I use every day and love as much as you can love an inanimate object. I have an MIC100 pre-amp that works great, every day, and is worth every penny I paid for it. And I have a GM108 amp, bought much-used, for forty bucks, that works great as well. None has ever given me any trouble. The effects pedals all worked, they just didn't work very well - meaning, they didn't give me what I expected - which may be more my fault than Behringer's, as I got them by mail order without testing them beforehand. That's my two cents on Behringer products.

Works as designed. I use the phantom power mostly, but also has a slot for a 9v battery and a switch. Easy setup and use. 4 stars for noise though. Live band? Great. Jazz combo? Perfect. For my live theater, not so great. I have it set up on a Roland keyboard for a musical we're currently running. 3ft of TS 1/4" from keyboard to the box, then 50' of XLR to the console. Set with gain at about 1/4 and normal levels, that channel gives me a lot more hiss than the others. For a band or combo its a non-issue. For live theater, it means annoying hiss during all the times when there isn't music and someone is trying to deliver lines.

I purchased this to cut down on the gear that I carry. I use this two ways: first, I use it as though it were two DI boxes to provide left and right output from my keyboard to a pair of PowerWerks PW50 RMS Personal PA System. The main value of this is the PW50s do not like instruments of any kind, and tend to get a little noisy. This box tames them down.The second use is similar. I use the Link setting to split a guitar from Channel 1 In to Channels 1 and 2 Out. That allows for a fake stereo effect (there is no crossover or separation).On the two aforementioned uses I need to run this off battery because the PW50 does not provide phantom power. I have an InnoGear® 1- Channel 48V Phantom Power Supply I could use, but frankly that starts to create a mess of wires. I do power it using a Mackie Mix Series Mix12FX 12-Channel Effects Mixer when I use that as a front to my PW50s, but the battery lasts over a week of gigs (I play a lot of one hour gigs per week in retirement homes.)What I love is this is rock solid reliable, and I can correct most problems with the attenuation or ground lift features. Those attributes earn this five stars in my book, but the additional flexibility using the Link function makes it even more valuable.