I have been lucky enough to get my hands on a pair of Pioneer CDJ2000s recently and I’ve been waiting patiently for a mixer to arrive from Thomann to use with them!
Out with the old…
I have owned a Pioneer XDJ-RX, which is an all-in-one DJ unit, for some time now. I got it second hand for a decent price because it had a few issues and broken knobs! But in general for some summerhouse DJing, it’s been a great device.
However… There have always been a couple of things that have irked me about it. In particular, you can kind of feel that it’s just slightly more budget than it’s larger CDJ brothers. Now, don’t get me wrong; it’s still an expensive bit of kit, and on eBay they still command a decent resale value for a fully working one.
…In with the new!
But when I had the chance to get a couple of CDJ2000s I jumped at it – figuring that I could sell the XDJ and use that money to buy a mixer. And that’s what I have done!
My new mixer is an Allen&Heath XONE 24. I’ve always had a soft-spot for the Allen&Heath models ever since I was lucky enough to own a XONE 62 back when I was DJing and clubbing regularly. I know they don’t have all the features of the equivalent priced Pioneer mixers, but they just sound… Well, really lovely and lush! And they have that sweet analogue filter of course!
Unbelievably the old Xone 62s still command a massive price second hand on eBay, so that idea went out the window pretty quickly… But I don’t need a 4 channel beast like that any more. So I did a bit more research and found that the Xone 24 is like the spiritual successor to those old 42, 62 and 92 mixers: It’s still all analogue (with the filter!) and sounds great, but is quite striped-back.
Do you DIY?
My old XDJ was quite a lot lighter than this set-up, so in preparation I had to make a few adjustments to my old deck-stand. You can probably see from the photos that there’s a substantially better shelf there now! It was a quick trip to Wickes for some shelves and then: grab the jigsaw, a drill and some screws and get DIYing.
Any final thoughts…
So the one thing I think I am going to miss is the more detailed wave-form on the XDJ screen: Despite being significantly less expensive, the XDJ does actually have newer software than the CJDs, and a better screen. And obviously while I don’t mean to be a DJ who relies on the waveform display (easy!), when some tunes start without a beat it really really does helps to have a waveform to see where the beat is! Guess I had better just get practicing!
So while the CDJs are “older” the quality is still much higher, so I’m calling it an upgrade!
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