Bo Hansen DI layout

[Potato Cakes]

For the ones I built with Carnhills, I simply zip tied the transformer on top of the Lundahl footprint and ran leads to the corresponding connections that translated from the Carnhill pins. I have had no grounding issues with them.

Thanks!

Paul

 

[Ricardus]

For the ones I built with Carnhills, I simply zip tied the transformer on top of the Lundahl footprint and ran leads to the corresponding connections that translated from the Carnhill pins. I have had no grounding issues with them.

Thanks!

Paul

Do you have a pic of that? Because this is a big traffo and it would cover the holes.

 

[Potato Cakes]

I'd have to open one up when I get a free moment. You can solder leads to the underside or find the next closest connection point to the appropriate solder pad and solder to that. It requires a little bit of creativity but it will allow you use a more compact enclosure than mounting to the case and avoid any possibility grounding issue.

Thanks!

Paul

 

[Ricardus]

I'd have to open one up when I get a free moment. You can solder leads to the underside or find the next closest connection point to the appropriate solder pad and solder to that. It requires a little bit of creativity but it will allow you use a more compact enclosure than mounting to the case and avoid any possibility grounding issue.

Thanks!

Paul

Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking about wiring to the underside.

The compactness of the enclosure is certainly something to consider, but not a big issue for me.

I'm confident the way I mounted my transformers they will never touch the case. In the case of the Ed Anderson it wouldn't even matter since it's plastic with epoxy.

 

[Ricardus]

The Ed Anderson DI I built looks exactly like the Carnhill, except for one word on the front panel.

 

[Ricardus]

I MAY have overdone it.

 

[Potato Cakes]

No way, eh?

I think I've built about the same quantity with various transformers.

Thanks!

Paul

 

[Ricardus]

No way, eh?

I think I've built about the same quantity with various transformers.

Thanks!

Paul

I haven't made any with Sowters yet! Right now it's Lundahl, Carnhill (and Ed Anderson), Haufe, and OEP.

 

[Whoops]

I MAY have overdone it.

looks great, congrats

 

[Ricardus]

Nice. Any subjective opinions on OEP vs Haufe ?

So after getting a few dozen gigs under my belt with these, I've found that the Haufe is clean, as it was intended to be a drop in replacement for the Lundahl, but the Haufe's seem to soften frequencies around 5k a little bit. Every once in a while I'll have a guitar player with a really bright and obnoxious sounding acoustic and I'll throw the Haufe on it, and it tames it a little bit.

Now I gotta say, I really like the way the OEPs sound, maybe the best. They fatten things up a bit, almost like you'd expect from a Neve transformer, but they're a lot less expensive.

I've made them with all 3 traffos that can fit on the boards, and another pair with Carnhill traffos, and I really love them all, but there are definitely slight differences.

 

[monkeyxx]

So after getting a few dozen gigs under my belt with these, I've found that the Haufe is clean, as it was intended to be a drop in replacement for the Lundahl, but the Haufe's seem to soften frequencies around 5k a little bit. Every once in a while I'll have a guitar player with a really bright and obnoxious sounding acoustic and I'll throw the Haufe on it, and it tames it a little bit.

Now I gotta say, I really like the way the OEPs sound, maybe the best. They fatten things up a bit, almost like you'd expect from a Neve transformer, but they're a lot less expensive.

I've made them with all 3 traffos that can fit on the boards, and another pair with Carnhill traffos, and I really love them all, but there are definitely slight differences.

No mention of the Lundahl vs the OEP?

If I can save that many bucks it would be an interesting opinion.  I've been putting mine off because of the cost of Lundahl parts.  OEP would fast track the project.  I'm building two.  I guess I could even do one of each.

 

[Whoops]

the Haufe's seem to soften frequencies around 5k a little bit. Every once in a while I'll have a guitar player with a really bright and obnoxious sounding acoustic and I'll throw the Haufe on it, and it tames it a little bit.

Now I gotta say, I really like the way the OEPs sound, maybe the best. They fatten things up a bit, almost like you'd expect from a Neve transformer, but they're a lot less expensive.

I've made them with all 3 traffos that can fit on the boards, and another pair with Carnhill traffos, and I really love them all, but there are definitely slight differences.

Thanks for the opinions, it would be great if you could do some recordings of the same instrument recorded with DIs with different transformers, that way new builders could decide what to use for a particular task.

Do you you think you can do that?

thanks

 

[Ricardus]

No mention of the Lundahl vs the OEP?

If I can save that many bucks it would be an interesting opinion.  I've been putting mine off because of the cost of Lundahl parts.  OEP would fast track the project.  I'm building two.  I guess I could even do one of each.

The Lundahl sounds amazing and very neutral. The OEP adds a little more fatness from more harmonic distortion I would think.

I don't think you would be disappointed with the OEP at all. That is easily the best deal on high quality traffos right now.

 

[Ricardus]

Thanks for the opinions, it would be great if you could do some recordings of the same instrument recorded with DIs with different transformers, that way new builders could decide what to use for a particular task.

Do you you think you can do that?

thanks

Some day. 

 

[Ricardus]

Thanks for the opinions, it would be great if you could do some recordings of the same instrument recorded with DIs with different transformers, that way new builders could decide what to use for a particular task.

Do you you think you can do that?

thanks

If all goes well I am going to record these Sunday night. All 4 of the flavors I made, plus a 5th wildcard. I will upload the files to Soundcloud or something without saying which traffos are which, so you can listen blind, and then you can PM me when you want to know which is which.

**Disclaimer**

I have a nice acoustic to use on this, but it hasn't been set up or restrung in a while, so I'm just going to roll with that for now.

 

[Ricardus]

OK, 5 samples uploaded to Soundcloud.

This is my Avalon Jacques Stotzem Signature Model guitar played through 4 different Bo Hansen DI's, with 4 different transformer flavors, and one wildcard DI. They are simply labeled 1-5. There is no compression or processing of any kind. I just edited the clips to clean up the front and back, and exported and normalized.

Signal path is  Guitar>DI>SSL 9000 500-Series Preamp>Tascam DA-3000

As I said above, the guitar is in need of a setup and new strings, and I can do another set when that happens. It has a Fishman pickup system in it, and this might be the first time I have ever used it. I always just play it as an acoustic, so I didn't fool around with the settings too much.

I was thinking of having a friend play some bass through the DIs. Maybe having more low end energy will be more revealing.

Listen blind and PM me when you want to know which is which.

https://soundcloud.com/ricardus/sets/di-challenge

 

[radardoug]

So you played it 5 times?

 

[Ricardus]

So you played it 5 times?

Yes.

 

[radardoug]

I'm sorry, that makes your test invalid. You need to play it once with all 5 d.i.s connected to the guitar.

 

[Ricardus]

I'm sorry, that makes your test invalid. You need to play it once with all 5 d.i.s connected to the guitar.

Yes. Clearly it's completely invalid. I'm ashamed I did it and will be removing all evidence of it from the interwebs.