Rupert Neve Designs RNDI

Active Transformer Direct Interface. The RNDI’s signature sound is the product of new custom Rupert Neve-designed transformers and class-A biased, discrete FET amplifiers. The carefully orchestrated union of these two elements is key to the RNDI’s unique response, delivering a powerful and vibrant direct sound capable of reproducing the full harmonic depth of basses, guitars, acoustic instruments, and professional line level sources. With portable, powerful, larger-than-life tone for your instrument and amplifier signals, the RNDI is truly the first standalone DI worthy of the Rupert Neve name. After coming into existence during an experimentation with new transformer designs, the RNDI was fine-tuned over a series of listening tests against the the most popular high-end DIs available. It was in these tests where the RNDI always seemed to add another dimension to the sound and bring the instruments to life. The lows felt richer, deeper and fuller, and the highs had outstanding clarity without any added harshness. Most importantly, the design team noted: “As musicians, the RNDI consistently stood out as the DI we wanted to play through.” The RNDI’s signature sound is the product both of new custom Rupert Neve-designed transformers and class-A biased, discrete FET amplifiers. The carefully orchestrated union of these two elements is key to the RNDI’s unique response. The transformers provide superior passive isolation while adding musical harmonics and dimension to the sound. The low impedance, transformer balanced output excels at driving long cable runs, and performance is immensely consistent regardless of the connected equipment. This is very important for both live and studio environments where the unamplified signal may travel almost 100ft before hitting an amplifier. In other designs, these high capacitance lines cause major reductions in high frequencies, however the output stage of the RNDI unrivaled at handling long runs with minimal losses. The class-A and discrete FET amplifier in the RNDI is powered by industry-standard 48V phantom power on the XLR connection, and creates a very high impedance input of 2M Ohms that ensures consistent performance with a wide variety of instruments. The significance of the RNDI’s class-A design is that there is no crossover distortion added to the signal, which can add upper order odd harmonics to the sound that are musically dissonant in nature. With the RNDI, the overwhelming majority of harmonic content is 2nd order (octave) with some 3rd order present (fifth above octave). These musically relevant harmonics – present in subtle amounts – actually add to the richness of the original signal. The discrete aspect of the RNDI design means there are no ICs or digital components that can have negative effects on the tone.These efforts to harmonize the performance of the transformer and the FET amplifier have resulted in the RNDI’s extremely well balanced response. The low end tonality is thick and powerful, with frequency response several octaves below audibility. The high end is clear, present, and smooth, with a frequency response extending beyond 100kHz. The phase coherence is unrivaled at all frequencies, which keeps the sound as natural as possible – especially vital when blending the direct signal with a microphone capture of the same source. Simply put, there is no DI ever made that performs like the RNDI.SpecsNoise:Measured Output, un-weighted, 22Hz-22kHz, source impedance 150 Ohms to 10K OhmsBetter than -110dBVInput ImpedanceInstrument Setting: 2.2 Meg OhmSpeaker Setting: 200k OhmOutput ImpedanceLess than 40 OhmsFrequency Response+/- 0.25dB from 25Hz – 44kHz+/- 1dB from 12.5Hz – 63kHz-3dBu @ 92kHzMaximum Input LevelInstrument = +21dBu Typical Speaker = +41.5dBu, 92 Vrms (266Vp-p)Maximum Output Level+11.5dBu output at maximum input levelTotal Harmonic Distortion plus Noise@ 1kHz, +20dBu input level:0.25% Typical (2nd and 3rd harmonic)@ 1kHz, -20dBu input level :0.015% Typical (2nd and 3rd harmonic)@ 20Hz, -20dBu input level :0.75% Typical (2nd and 3rd harmonic)Power RequirementsPhantom power, 4.5mA @ +48VDCWeight 1.5lbsDimensions 6.25” long x 4”wide x 1.5” high