"Radial DIs make everything sound better"

[wesg]

Is there any validity to this statement, or is it just another audiofool thing?

 

Posters elsewhere are trying to convince me that saturating the core of the transformer

a) frequently happens with keyboard levels

b) sounds good

 

My BS detector is sounding five alarms, but these are people who should actually know better, and the Radial marketing literature is backing them up. Thought I'd drop a note here to get the straight dope.

 

Thanks,

Wes

[agedhorse]

IMO, your BS detector is working A-OK-fine.

 

Radial/Jensen make excellent quality transformers. They also pride themselves on making their transformers very difficult to saturate the cores. This appears to be at odds to their marketing department, and in general, no it doesn't sound good with keyboards. How it sounds also depends on the hysteresis curve of the particular transformer. Some transformers have soft and sloppy curves while others have very stiff curves depending on core materials and geometry.Transformers that saturate gradually MAY soound ok on guitar and bass, but IMO that's something that started out having some merit, then got blown all out of proportion by insane marketing claims.

 

Been studying transformers for a very long time as I use them in some of my designs. There are so many things to consider that it's IMPOSSIBLE to make a blanket statement like that without considering the specifit context that the claim is made.

 

It MAY be true in some cases, but this goes against what my experience has shown in GENERAL.

[wesg]

Thanks, Andy. It's always nice to get the facts from the (aged) horse's mouth. I originally looked at the product specs and saw +/-1.5dB from 20 to 20k Hz, which suggested a very transparent transformer. Not "warm".

 

But then they start talking about colour the sound by saturating the core, and not attaching any numbers to that.....and suddenly the marketing efforts have confused everything. In this case, the transformer is an Eclipse unit, but my understanding is that these are also very good units.

 

Wes

[dboomer]

It is always interesting to think about what makes something "sound better" as opposed to what has the least impact on changing anything. I have used some cheap transformer DI boxes over the years that caused distortion (especially with keyboards) because the cheap little transformers saturated.

 

There are a number of things besides frequency response that would contribute to sound quality including phase response.

 

Interesting ... that Sound City mixer in Dave Grohl's movie has 9 transformers in the audio chain from input to tape output.

[Craig Vecchione]

This could also be an ironic case of the Radial DI being an excellent unit, but the marketing department screws up with all their hyperbole and you wind up getting some other product.

[Dogoth]

Just proof that the marketing guys will tell you anything to sell a product. They doubtfully consulted with the engineering department before making that statement. IMO Radial DI's don't need any hype as they are excellent products. Maybe the new head of marketing was previously a used car salesman or an agent.

 

Just a thought

[agedhorse]

This could also be an ironic case of the Radial DI being an excellent unit, but the marketing department screws up with all their hyperbole and you wind up getting some other product.

 

IMO, this might be the case.

[fdew]

I think it is accurate to say that in most cases using a DI with a jensen transformer will insure that you make a minamual change to the sound. They are forgiving of "hot" inputs, and have very good shielding. The shielding can help with hum and buzz issues. I carry jensen transformer DIs in my gig bag. Often I could get by with less, but I know that they will always do the job. I refer to a DI with a jensen transformer as if they were all the same because a passive DI with the filters and other options turned off has the transformer and a resistor in the signal path, that's all. Therefor the only difference between DIs with Jensen transformers are the jacks and the box

[TimmyP]

Does a K2600 sound better through a JDI than through a ProDI? Yes. Does it sound better through a ProDI and through a Director? Yes. Is each step up worth the money? That depends on the user.

[agedhorse]

I think it also depends greatly on the users belief of the marketing program associated with each product. For example, identical Jensen transformed places in a whirlwind box or a radial box might sound identical in a double-blind test certainly will not sound the same in a test where the user sees which box is which and hears with their eyes. I have done exactly this, looks and image are much more important than you might imagine.