Best DI for Taylor ES

[jonnywood23]

Hey guys,
I am looking at trying to improve the sound of my Taylor 614ce and 410ce with a DI box.

Do you guys have any recommendations? So far I have heard good things about the Radial J48, LR Baggs ParaDI, Radial JDI.

Has anyone had any experience when comparing some of these models. I have a Cole Clark FL2AC with the 3 way pickup and it smokes the Taylors plugged straight to the PA. I was hoping to get closer to the natural sound of the Cole Clark with the Taylor and a DI

Thanks...

[lschwart]

Unless you're seeking to match up the impedances of an output and an input (making the output appropriate for a given input), or you need to balance an unbalanced signal so that it can be sent a long way to a mixer with an XLR cable, a DI box will do nothing for your sound. It's a device for balancing and changing the impedance of a signal. That's all. Depending on what kind of ES system you have, you might not even need a DI. The older ES system offers a balanced, low impedance signal if you use a TRS or TRS to XLR cable. I suspect that the reason the Cole Clark sounds better to you is simply that you like the sound of that system better.

If you have the newer ES system with the unbalanced signal, you might like the sound better if you use a DI box to send the signal into a mic input on the mixer rather than a line input, but if the cable is short, I wouldn't expect a day and night difference the way you might if you were using a passive pickup with a high impedance signal. It might be quieter, however, and give you more gain to work with at the mixer input.

Also: the L.R. Baggs ParaDI is not just a DI box, but a preamp and EQ unit in addition. It might allow you to tweak the sound of your Taylor more to your liking, but again I wouldn't expect the difference to be night and day.

Louis

[pieterh]

...and here we go again with the ongoing discussion re DI. As Ischwart states, a DI (stands for Direct Inject/Input) is a device for optimising the impedance and balancing the signal from a non-balanced source.

A preamp on the other hand can have a lot of tone shaping and control possibilities and almost (but not quite) always has an INBUILT DI, or to put it another way the output from the preamp is already balanced so a DI is not needed. The original ES in all its versions is a balanced system (which is why they used to be supplied with a TRS to XLR cable). Plugging the ES into a DI is like a "fixing what ain't broke" option as the signal going into the DI will only be half of that available from the guitar.

People often question whether an actual DI can sound good if it's doing it's job properly. My experience with various different brands of DI is that yes, subjectively, the good ones sound really good - which makes you realise that the not-so-good ones are compromising the sound from the instrument.

What you are probably after is a decent preamp with a good eq section. The Equinox from D-tar seem to offer quite comprehensive eq'ing (and yes, it has a balanced output) and the Solstice seems to offer a lot (including balanced inputs) too. Radial's preamps are popular too - I am very happy with my Pz-pre though in hindsight I should maybe have gone for a preamp with a balanced input for my Taylor's sake...

[MikeBmusic]

To the OP, first you need to answer the questions:
1) What ES system do your guitars have?
2) If it's the ES1 v3, are you using a balanced (TRS-XLR) cable?

[gmfgtr]

I completely agree! A DI with some pre-amp is the way to go.

[MattM]

I use the DTAR Solstice with my ES equipped 600 SPEC ('03 model, so the very first iteration of the ES) and it sounds very good. It is a duel source preamp, so I am only using one channel of it, but I have the other channel set up for my UST equipped guitars and that works well for me. It sounds a lot better through that preamp than either direct to the PA or through my old PADI.

[Steely Glen]

I use a Taylor K4 (all balanced cables) with great results on my three ES-equipped Taylors.