A new player from the famous brand Alpha Theta (Pioneer DJ) has gone on sale. The design is designed for small spaces, both for home mixing and compact DJ booths. It inherits the powerful CDJ-3000X in terms of design and use, but has significantly reduced the price. Tsugi will explain everything to you.
Design and sound design, largely inherited from the CDJ-3000X
So what does this new deck have to offer? We are conqueredSound quality optimized by power supply design for an ultra-narrow frequency range. Bass is present and accurate. As for the mids and highs, they are designed to accurately convey voices and instruments. This is a truly welcome development and alleviates the frustration of hearing voices in the background versus overly audible bass. On the visual side, the aesthetics are really good. Its matte black appearance contrasts with the somewhat dated appearance of previous models. To top it all off, two additional wood effect side panels can be attached to the sides to really add that extra something extra.
The display theme automatically adapts to brightness with dark and light modes, which we find quite practical. There are 12 LED colors to choose from on the front LED. It seems a little gimmicky to us, but in the end, why not. The touchscreen size is 10.1 inches, the same as the CDJ-3000X. But unlike the latter, the selection of tracks is carried out on the screen; there is no button to select them. As for the waveform, it is optimized to accurately predict vocal positions, BPM changes, and phrase structure. Thus, this complements the improvement in audio fidelity of frequency ranges. As for hot spots, there are eight of them, nothing new. However, we’re still a little skeptical about how the rhythm loop works, which we don’t find very intuitive. One button is available to create, end, and exit a loop.
On the new side of the connection
CDJ has built-in Wi-Fi for connecting to the cloud and streaming devices. Another step towards the dematerialization of sound, suggesting the disappearance of the old USB key. Google Drive and Dropbox are integrated for the cloud. As for streaming, you can use Apple Music, Tidal or Beatport accounts. We are very sorry that Soundcloud and Bandcamp are unavailable. The library is accessed via QR code or NFC technology. The hardware has traditional USB Type A ports as well as Type C! Audio output is via a good old RCA cable, there is no coaxial digital audio output like the CDJ-3000X.
Controversial technology
The player has the CoBeat function. It allows listeners to send requests and messages via QR code, which are displayed in real time on special tabs on the screen. A dream for some, a nightmare for others, DJ, be the judge! The equipment is designed for use with the compact DJM-V5 3-channel mixer, also finished in matte black and optimized for size. But the player is obviously compatible with most mixers.
Reasonable price? 1699 each, 500 euros less than the CDJ 3000X, no matter what.