Palmer PDI 03 JB

I bought this for recording and so I can use a small amp (Princeton) live using the outputs for additional monitoring and PA. It's incredible and has all the features I need in a small box. It even has mounting holes in case you wanted to permanently fix it in the back of a rack or similar. It offers a good range of sound options via switches. I'm hoping Palmer will bring out something in between this and the rack unit; this with an integral dummy load. As usual the best price I could find was Thomann and it was delivered from Germany to the UK in 3 days. Excellent.

NOW THAT's WHAT I CALL GREAT STUFF.
- many routing possiblilities.
- Very good Sound
- ULTRA low Noise floor
- Small
It is currently just bolted onto my pedal board and gets rerouted from time to time as needed:
- AMP -> PALMER -> SPEAKERS
- AMP -> PALMER -> SPEAKERS + LINE OUT
- FX -> PALMER -> MIXING BOARD/RECORDER/...
- FX -> PALMER -> AMP
Works perfect, is extremely versatile (even beyond the descriptions), Sound very good, is build as a tank.

The PDI 03 JB became my go to DI box for guitar. This has been the case for years now, and I tried them all - not counting reactive loads and IRs - and always turned back to this piece of gear special to me.

What I like about it:

- fully passive and rugged. No bs battery, LED, power plugs. Just plug and play with your amp and cab or load box.

- 3 levels of sensitivity. You can use it with power output or just with pedals, at preamp or line levels. Really handy, easy to experiment with even without a power amp!

- it sounds full, punchy, not noisy.

- versatile EQ. It can go from smooth dark to piercing bright, and from mid scooped to mid-forward. Also three levels of low end resonance. The controls are interactive and it is really hard to not get a tone you like or the one you need out of it, for both guitar and bass. The "JB" switch provides a new dimension: I think the original model lacks the mid push typical of a guitar speaker by itself (it has more of a bass speaker frequency response), and this switch puts it back into place.

- all the other features that you need in a DI, nothing more, nothing less: ground lift switch, unbalanced and balanced outputs.


What I would add or change to it? Very little!

- I would make the JB settings more different from each other: the Medium and Heavy don't differ very much from each other, the difference is subtle. But it may be just in combination with my typical rig or settings.

- a switch to disable speaker emulation altogether would have made it universal :D