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OUR PART #: RNDI
The Rupert Neve Designs RNDI active transformer DI box is designed to provide the highest-quality output available for sources such as basses, guitars... ...Read more
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The Rupert Neve Designs RNDI active transformer DI box is designed to provide the highest-quality output available for sources such as basses, guitars, acoustic instruments and line level sources. The RNDI’s signature sound is the product both of custom Rupert Neve-designed transformers and class-A biased, discrete FET amplifiers. The carefully orchestrated union of these two elements is key to the RNDI’s unique response.
The transformers provide superior passive isolation while adding musical harmonics and dimension to the sound. The low impedance, transformer balanced output excels at driving long cable runs, and performance is immensely consistent regardless of the connected equipment. This is very important for both live and studio environments where the unamplified signal may travel almost 100ft before hitting an amplifier. In other designs, these high capacitance lines cause major reductions in high frequencies; however, the output stage of the RNDI is unrivaled at handling long runs with minimal losses.
The class-A and discrete FET amplifier in the RNDI is powered by 48V phantom power on the XLR connection, and creates a high impedance input of 2 MegaOhms that ensures consistent performance with a wide variety of instruments. The significance of the RNDI’s class-A design is that there is no crossover distortion added to the signal, which can add upper order odd harmonics to the sound that are musically dissonant in nature. With the RNDI, the overwhelming majority of harmonic content is 2nd order (octave) with some 3rd order present (fifth above octave). These musically relevant harmonics – present in subtle amounts – actually add to the richness of the original signal. The discrete aspect of the RNDI design means there are no ICs or digital components that can have negative effects on the tone.
These efforts to harmonize the performance of the transformer and the FET amplifier have resulted in the RNDI’s well-balanced response. The low end tonality is thick and powerful, with frequency response several octaves below audibility. The high end is clear, present, and smooth, with a frequency response extending beyond 100kHz. The phase coherence is unrivaled at all frequencies, which keeps the sound as natural as possible – especially when blending the direct signal with a microphone capture of the same source. Simply put, there is no DI ever made that performs like the RNDI.
In instrument mode, the RNDI’s high input headroom of +21.5dBU is capable of handling not only instruments, but professional, line level sources like interfaces, CD players and drum machines without a pad. This allows the RNDI to serve as a way to “Re-Preamp” any previously recorded track using your interface and a desired preamp. To do this, simply connect a channel output of the interface to the input of the RNDI and connect the RNDI’s output to the preamp and engage 48V. By “Re-Preamping” you can apply the tone of another preamp to the source and more accurately automate or control the drive level on the preamp.
In speaker mode, the RNDI can handle the screaming output of a 1000 Watt power amplifier (92 Vrms or 266Vp-p) to capture the full tone of the instrument, preamplifier, EQ, inserts, and the amplifier’s output stages before it hits the speakers. This technique allows the engineer to avoid any bleed in a live environment and any unwanted tone added by the speaker cabinet or microphone. When used with modern speaker emulation plug-ins, this technique allows the engineer to take advantage of the flexibility of digital modeling, and the superior non-linear response of an actual analog amplifier.
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