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Post subject: DI Box and Passport 500 Pro Confusion
Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 7:33 pm
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Hobbyist
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Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2012 11:28 am
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Hey all, I am a bit confused about when and why to use a DI box. I have the Passport 500 Pro and am looking to use it on a gig with my jazz quintet this weekend. I want to run a Bass and my Korg Kross 88 Keyboard through the system.
Here's where I'm confused:
My Keyboard always runs through the system when I'm at home... Through a line cable. It has always sounded totally fine to me, but recently I read on another forum that I need to use a DI box with a Hi-Z input and Lo-Z output to do this with a Bass Guitar. My question is, why do I have to do this with a bass guitar, and should I be doing it with my keyboard as well? Also, what does Hi-Z and Lo-Z mean?

Edit: And would I still have to use the bass guitar amp if I did this with the bass?


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Post subject: Re: DI Box and Passport 500 Pro Confusion
Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 3:50 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:24 am
Posts: 434
Great questions, all. I can answer some of them.

If it's really important to save weight and bulk, you can get away with plugging your bass directly into the sound system, but keep in mind that a bass amp is designed from the input jack to the speaker to play bass so it sounds good. The Passport 500 is a great sound system, but by comparison, it's a little weak in the bass. That's why Fender included a "Sub Out" port. If you want a more powerful bass sound than the 500 gives you, a powered subwoofer can help a lot.

Don't use a bass amp as a powered subwoofer. I tried that. It doesn't sound good. Bass amps have an entire sound envelope that defines the sound of a bass. Powered subwoofers exclusively play low frequencies. These tasks are different, requiring different hardware.

The 10" speaker on the Passport is not going to give you the same kind of bass sound that you get out of a 15"-17" speaker typical for a bass amp.

Likely, the bass will sound better played through a bass amp than through the Passport. And since bass is very nearly not directional, you probably don't need to run it through the Passport at all, if the bass amp is in the 300-or-more-watt output range. It can fill the same hall the Passport is filling.

DI boxes are primarily used for big stage productions where a musician has an instrument amp close to them, for use as a monitor, and a multi-thousand-watt sound system that is farther away. You take your 1/4"TS line cable from the instrument to the DI box, and run 1/4"TS line cable to your instrument amp, and you run an XLR cable 50' or more to the sound system, because it's that far away, and only an XLR cable is sufficiently shielded to carry your signal that far without interference or loss of signal quality.

No one has ever sat down with me and shown me the qualitative difference between hi-Z and regular-Z, and my own experiments have not clarified the difference, but then I don't play electric guitar, which is the main instrument that Hi-Z is apparently required for. I've spent time switching Hi-Z on and off with various acoustic instruments. I don't perceive a difference.


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