Nord User Forum

Same job for the quality of sound especially with th radial high end box like the OP asked but no specific gain/volume control for the stereo one....RCA input has one though as it 's supposed to receive a stereo signal from a CD player, maybe Evn a keyboard and mix it with the other input.... But it's just an extra features that led me agIn to the conclusion that the Duplex is better in a sense that you could expand a bit the normal use of a DI described byCgrafx to a "beginning" of a mixer ability.
So to exactly respond to the OT, yes, duplex will accept a end keyboard via it's RCA inputs, no for a microphone, it's not a preamp microphone...Ans yes, same transformers same quality of sound

Hi folks

I agree the thread title is no longer relevant and it's due to my ignorance. I also apologise for causing a mix up, not my intention to cause arguments amongst the good folks here.

I have ordered the radial key largo, with a bit of luck might have it tomorrow.
Thank you everybody for your advice, especially the straight shooting cgrafx who had me laughing with his bubble gum and tape analogy

Alicja wrote:Cgrafx "The speakers in question are expecting a line-level source up to +24 dBu"

You mentioned this in your post, I am hoping you can elaborate on this and explain why the DI box would not do as good a job as the mixer.

For the purposes of this discussion I am talking about active mixers which is what most people think of when referring to a mixer.

A passive DI box as well as most active DI boxes have no amplification or gain stage, they are designed to simply translate a signal from an unbalanced source into a balanced low impedance source suitable for plugging into a balanced mic level input. The output level is entirely dependent on the source plugged into the input of the DI. If the input can't drive +24 dBu then the DI will not magically change that, and in cheaper DI designs if you tried to drive the input at that level you'd saturate and overload the DI.

Mixers generally have an input channel gain stage (1st stage of amplification) and at a minimum an output stage with line drivers and in many cases an output stage with both gain and line drivers (2nd stage of amplification). They provide both impedance matching in the input stage, along with amplification and drive circuits that boost the signal level from input to output.

In the case of the speakers in question, the Nord (and other keyboards) will certainly provide enough signal gain to use, but its unlikely they will be able to drive the speakers to their rated output (not too many keyboards have output stages designed to drive +24 dBu).

The Neumann speakers are studio monitors, unlike the Alto's they do not have a mixer built into them.

Thank you.

Ok so basically what you are saying is that the keyboard doesn’t provide enough

a) volume
b) power

To have the nord keyboard sounds working optimally through my Neumann speakers.

Now that I will have the radial key largo the speakers will get all the sounds they need at the rich levels required for them to generate the true sound of the piano.

The Radial key Largo is a little bit of an unknown in this case because they don't have anything listed for the specs for output drive capability.

However, Radial has a well earned reputation for building exceptional gear so I expect it will work as expected.