Strymon Engineering has introduced the new PCH Stereo Active Direct Interface, an advanced stereo direct box with a built-in headphone amplifier.
Featuring impressive specs that out-perform DIs anywhere near its price range, PCH also has a unique feature expected to delight pedalboard users: a powerful built-in headphone amp, loud and clean enough to drive even high impedance headphones.
Now you can rest easy knowing that the sound of your pedalboard won’t change even a little when passing through PCH, and the headphone amp means you won’t have to ask anyone how you sound. You’ll know.
PCH makes it easy to monitor or practice while listening to the sound of your entire rig or pedalboard in full stereo. No matter what instrument or style of music you play, if you need to connect unbalanced outputs to a PA, recording interface or flat response speaker system, PCH is the ultimate choice for an absolutely transparent stereo direct interface - and it’s the only one that you can listen to locally via the stereo headphone amp.
Housed in a battle-ready 3mm extruded aluminum chassis, PCH requires 9VDC power, which it converts internally via a custom single-channel Ojai power supply to 24VDC. That extra voltage and high current renders the interface nearly un-clippable, and allows it to achieve a max signal-to-noise ratio of 135db, a hyper-flat frequency response of +/- 0.25db from 10Hz to 80 KHz, and gives the headphone amplifier enough power to cleanly drive even 600 ohm headphones without distortion.
PCH features include:
• Two channel design - use in stereo or dual mono, whichever fits your setup
• Runs on 9VDC - internally converted to 24V to be virtually unclippable
• Stereo headphone amplifier powerful enough to drive high impedance headphones
• Switchable Mic/Line level operation for the XLR outputs
• Defeatable ground lift for the XLR outputs
• Defeatable Sum for the Thru outputs
• Runs off of a modified internal mini Ojai power supply for ultimate performance
• Extremely low THD (Total Harmonic Distortion)
• Bulletproof construction that will stand up to the abuse of the road
“As the music world continues to embrace quiet stage volumes, instrumentalists increasingly turn to amp-less live rigs to achieve good tones at low volumes”, said Sean Halley, Strymon’s Head of Marketing. “Unfortunately this creates problems for players trying to hear their entire pedalboard when they’re anywhere else but onstage. With a PCH at the end of your signal chain, you get a pristine direct interface and a killer built-in headphone amp to make sure that what you’re sending to the PA or recording rig is exactly what you intend to - and it makes silent practicing a joy.”
Gregg Stock, Strymon co-founder and analog circuit guru adds “while we’re more recognized for our DSP effects pedals, they wouldn’t sound the way they do if the analog side wasn’t just as advanced. With PCH we’ve brought that analog expertise to a new market, because it doesn’t matter whose pedals are on your board, you need a bulletproof and pristine-sounding DI to interface with the outside world. PCH isn’t just for guitarists, it’s for anyone with a pedalboard.”
The PCH Active Stereo DI is available now directly from Strymon and from dealers worldwide for $279 US.
