MOTU ZBox

[lpf3]

Hey, all-

Anyone have any experience with one of these?

Is it just a DI box?

I'm wondering if there's anything to these folks' claims, and if maybe it would be simple enough to make a DIY version with readily available materials.........


-lpf3

[JohnH]

It looks like it is a high impedance buffer, a very useful device if yiu need to plug into a low impedance input, such as a standard line-in. The question is, does it do anything else to the tone? The 3rd review on that page suggests not, and if that is so, then it is indeed easy to make one either built into a cable, or as a seperate box, or built into a guitar. Heres what I have tried:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=schem&action=display&thread=3150

John

[ashcatlt]

The MOTU website says that it doesn't require any power, which means this is a passive device, which means it must be transformer based, which means it's nothing more than a passive DI only nowhere near as useful, since the output is an attached 19" long unbalanced cable!

It is fairly cheap, but...

[sumgai]

Thumbs down.

MOTU does not compete on price versus value, they compete on who generates the most inventive Marketing-Speak^© (copyright ChrisK, 2005).

One should note that heretofore on this Forum, no one has admitted to falling for their hype. My advice is, don't be the one to let that record fall.

That is all.




sumgai

[ashcatlt]

I have a number of "Realistic" in-line transformers. They do (at least) what this does for impedance. I've found over the years that the poor quality components used in these things tend to fail in such a way as to act as a fairly good substitute for a relatively clean amp/speaker simulator.

I currently have enough amp sims (analog and digital, not counting software) for like 8 sources at once. I keep the RadioShaft things around just in case this isn't enough.

I can't speak toward MOTU's current standards. I had a MicroXPress about 15 years before I found this forum. It worked well - on PC and Mac - through into the new millenium when my Mac died and I found out that the parallel port for PCs had a broken pin. AFAIK, they've maintained the drivers to this day. Not sure I own a computer with a parallel port anymore, though...

[lpf3]

Sounds like the consensus is "Don't buy one" . Luckily I'm too stingy ;D & by the looks of it I figured a suitable DIY project would do the trick.

That was a great thread, John, lots of interesting stuff & the sound sample was cool. I think after checking further though, it turns out that my MBox interface does pretty much the same thing.

So for now the record stands.

Thanks,

-lpf3