Radial Gold Digger: Find the Right Microphone Without Re-Patching

The Radial Gold Digger is a 4-channel microphone selector that lets you audition up to four mics through a single preamp and switch between them instantly at the press of a button. It routes one input at a time to a shared output so you can compare microphones in real time, on the same source, through the same signal chain. For the engineer chasing the perfect vocal tone, it turns a slow, cable-swapping guessing game into a fast, confident decision.

How Straight-Wire Switching Keeps the Comparison Honest

The Gold Digger employs the absolute minimum number of passive components in the audio path and uses relay switching rather than active buffering, so the signal effectively passes through a straight wire. That design yields a unity-gain device with distortion of just 0.0003% and a signal-to-noise ratio exceeding 140dB — figures at the very edge of measurement. Because the box adds no color, noise, or distortion, any difference you hear between mics is the microphones themselves, not the switcher.

Level-Matched Trim for a True A/B

Meaningful microphone comparisons only work when every mic plays back at the same loudness, because the ear naturally favors whatever is louder. The Gold Digger gives each of its four inputs a set-and-forget trim control, so you can match levels once and then switch freely, letting tone rather than volume drive your choice. This is what makes it a genuine debugging tool for hearing the subtle differences between similar microphones.

Phantom Power on Every Input

Each of the four channels has its own switchable 48V phantom power supply, so you can load the box with a mix of condenser and dynamic microphones and power only the ones that need it. There is no phantom management or re-patching between takes — activate phantom where you need it, arm your mics, and start switching. Condenser shootouts that once required a patchbay dance now happen in a single, tidy box.

From Vocal Shootouts to Live Wireless

In the studio, the Gold Digger is the fast way to shoot out vocal mics, compare direct boxes, or A/B similar models to hear which one flatters a source. Paired with the Radial Cherry Picker, it expands to compare four microphones against four preamps in any combination. On the road, it can route as many as four wireless systems into a single PA channel — four handhelds in a house of worship, four wireless guitars, or a pair of mics at a town-hall meeting.

Who the Gold Digger Is For

The Gold Digger is for recording engineers, producers, and studio owners who own more than a couple of microphones and want to choose the right one quickly and objectively. It is equally at home with front-of-house engineers who need clean, instant source selection in a live rig. If you value your time and your tone, it pays for itself the first time it saves you a mic swap mid-session.