Behringer’s new DI4800A DI Box: A rackmount bargain?
4,5 / 5,0 | 
The new Behringer DI4800A gives you a four-channel DI box, signal booster and line isolator in one rack mount box. A credible rethink of the DI Box format, or just another anonymous box we’ll forget next week? Let’s take a look and dig into the details, shall we?
Behringer DI4800A
“Oh yay Gearnews, another DI Box review, how very exciting, thanks!”. Yeah yeah, we can hear you groaning from here, but we can’t say this enough: good utility tools aren’t sexy but they are essential. If a tool is essential then it should be easy to use, well built, well designed and affordable. With that statement made, let’s see if the DI4800A meets that criteria.
On the face of things, the DI4800A is quite simply a four-channel, rack mount DI box. It’s the kind of thing you’ll build into keyboard racks for studio and stage, use with playback rigs or just simply a general-purpose tool. Look a little farther though and there are some interesting deviations from the usual DI box format. The DI4800 incorporates two preset gain boost switches, enabling a total of 18db gain boost if necessary.
Boost your Potential
Having some preset gain boost could be handy for increasing the signal to noise ratio of low output instruments, such as passive pickup guitars. Alongside the boost function, there are the usual 20 dB pad and ground lift features we’d hope to see on a DI box. What isn’t present, however, is a 1/4″ “link” or “thru” socket allowing you to send a parallel output feed.
Instead of a traditional link output, Behringer has chosen to give us two, transformer-isolated XLR outputs. This possibly pushes the DI4800A into the realms of being a line splitter box as much as a DI Box. Whether that’s a trade-off that’s of value to you will depend on your specific application. As of yet, we’ve not received word on pricing, although naturally, Behringer pricing tends to be extremely competitive. We think that anything under €200 would make this a bit of a bargain…
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2 responses to “Behringer’s new DI4800A DI Box: A rackmount bargain?”
The suggested retail price as stated in their Facebook post is set to €79,-
Just been to check Behringer’s FB page and yes, they’re stating $79!
That’s an incredible price. We’ll update the article once they’re shipping and in stock.