Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS2 DJ Review

[amirm]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS2 Professional DJ Multiplayer. It is discontinued but used ones seem to still go for US $1,800.

Construction seems very nice and the large display is a joy to look at. I have no idea what most of the controls do. My goal as agreed with the owner was to measure its DAC performance using the USB input.

Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS2 Measurements
As usual, we start with our dashboard:

Performance in Channel 1 exceeds my expection and company spec. Alas, the noise floor is much higher in Channel 2 and no matter what I did with grounding, it made no difference. Whether this is endemic to the unit or specific to this unit/my situation, I can't say. My policy is to average the two channels and doing so, doesn't place the CDJ-2000 in a good place:

If however, both channels were just as good, it would land in our "very good" green category. Paradoxically, dynamic range is excellent in both channels:

IMD test shows rising distortion/noise in the bad channel:

This rules out grounding issues.

Frequency response is fine:

At this point, I jumped to my last test, which is distortion+noise vs frequency:

The sharp increase even in the good channel above 10 kHz was puzzling to me, causing me to run a bunch more tests. First was to run a wideband FFT at 1 and 20 kHz:

Clearly something strange is going on at 20 kHz. Somehow the noise floor goes down but massive amount of sidebands appear. Thinking this may jitter, I ran that test:

It is definitely not clean but doesn't explain the previous results.

I thought maybe the reconstruction filter is poor but it is the opposite:

I am out of explanation.

Conclusions
Lacking expertise in DJ equipment, I don't have anything definitive to say about its functionality. The nice display and build quality impress me so for what it is worth, I give that a thumbs up!

On performance, something is seriously wrong with one channel. There is some chance it is this specific unit or it is acting up in my environment. The latter though, escaped any attempt at diagnostic. The fact that there is rising distortion at 20 kHz in *both* channels however, points to some independent design problem. I have never seen any DAC do this.

Based on this sample measurements, I can't recommend the Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS2. Maybe we get access to a newer model and we can see if this is unique problem or not.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

 

[Rja4000]

Interesting !
Thanks for the review.

 

[JSmith]

Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS2 Professional DJ Multiplayer

People will be interested to see the test results on this, thanks.

Pics;

JSmith

 

[daftcombo]

Very interesting to see you measure that kind of DJ gear! Thanks a lot Amir.

Of course if would be nice to see someone else confirm the discrepancy in the two channels.

 

[pavuol]

I just like Pioneer as a brand and this is a beautiful gadget, so I don't mind measurements!

[I see it listed in our local "pricerunner" and here in middle EU it was sold 2010-2020 for ~1500-2300 Euros

Sorry I can't wrap this beauty behind spoiler! :

 

[Scytales]

On performance, something is seriously wrong with one channel. There is some chance it is this specific unit or it is acting up in my environment. The latter though, escaped any attempt at diagnostic. The fact that there is rising distortion at 20 kHz in *both* channels however, points to some independent design problem. I have never seen any DAC do this.

French blogger jipihorn did encountered a DAC with a somewhat similar behavior about distortion in one channel only and troubleshooted it. The root cause was a suspicious MKT capacitor in the output multiple feedback type active low pass filter of that channel (video in French):

Relevant timeline in the video:

• 8'46'': measurements of the device in stock form (with an Audio Precision AP2522);
• 18'36'': beginning of the troubleshooting workflow;
• 42'19'': statement of the hypothesis of a defective capacitor and analysis of its consequences;
• 45'59'': confirmation of the hypothesis by measurements after removal of the stock capacitor and substitution by another one (silver mica).

Jipihorn was aware of Douglas Self's studies about distortion induced by MKT capacitors (see also one of Cyril Bateman's studies: https://linearaudio.net/capacitor-s...hind-sound-wound-and-stacked-capacitors-cyril).

Perhaps there is a similar phenomenon at play in the Pioneer. It may not explain the elevated noise floor, though.

 

[fordiebianco]

I would fall for the dials and display as well. Beautiful piece of bling.

 

[Robbo99999]

I think it's a bit ugly, but I guess it's marketed as DJ equipment so it doesn't really matter. Obviously a bit of an old school product, and it needs all those knobs, dials & sliders as part of the functionality so it's never gonna look great as a piece of living room material for instance. Hard to rate the product as I think it's all about it's use case & whether it works well for that use, but in terms of measurements it's mediocre, I'll just rate it not terrible for lack of information re it's performance for intended usage.

 

[Sokel]

I guess is fine as even its bad channel clears the old 0.1% THD+N pro gear mark by a huge margin and with its complex structure and controls.
We all have listened to it unintentionally probably sometime at some club or so.

But I agree, since the good channel is there with its performance, bad channel has to be fixed.

Thanks Amir!

 

[naagratrax]

As a semi - professional DJ thanks you a lot for that amir !
@nagster has already share some infos (with an audio precision too) in a another thread but can't find the faulty channel in the 2000Nexus 2

Did you try with the master tempo on/off ?

Does it measure the same with the coaxial digital out ?

If other people can send the CDJ 3000/or the new 3000X even the Denon SC6000 It would be a great help to the community of djs and sound professionals

 

[Tell]

Very nice seeing these kind of things being tested! Sure on a objective scale it's lacking something, but hopefully it's only this particular unit? I've heard this one a lot and even played a bit on them but never had any issues, and the performance is still good enough on a subjective scale. Apart from the sound quality these are really nice to play with, if you've run your files through Rekordbox you'll have waveforms and beat grids on that display which can be really useful (unless you're a grump oldschool beatmatching DJ that is)!

Would be interesting seeing a mixer tested as well, with all their inputs, outputs, slider, knobs, filters etc, if it's downgrading the signal in any way apart from what it's supposed to be doing

 

[AndreaT]

The worst music quality of reproduction I’ve ever listened to was…in discotheque…there music is way too loud, tonally wrong, with so much noise from other customers. So, I guess, it is a box way above the quality required in discos, in spite of its poor measurements. Thank you Amir for an excellent review.

 

[heraldo_jones]

Considering that the music played on these devices usually ranges from -5 to -3 LUFS, I don’t think the technical aspect of the equipment makes much of a difference — not to mention the environments where this music is typically played. I say this without any negativity toward DJs, producers, or listeners of this music (I include myself in that third category).

 

[Spkrdctr]

Great review. Amir for the win!

 

[Simfunk]

Great to see DJ equipment being measured, thanks a lot! Being a purely analog DJ, I'd be very interested in measurements of DJ mixers (with or without built-in DAC).

 

[naagratrax]

Considering that the music played on these devices usually ranges from -5 to -3 LUFS, I don’t think the technical aspect of the equipment makes much of a difference — not to mention the environments where this music is typically played. I say this without any negativity toward DJs, producers, or listeners of this music (I include myself in that third category).

Majority of electronic music is -8lufs not -5lufs, it's sound atrocious at -5, I can't imagine at -3lufs

 

[3125b]

I suppose the performance of this just needs to be "good enough" for its use case, nobody visits a disco for hi-fi enjoyment.

 

[Redman43]

See no point in testing this kind of equipment on this site. Just like the "3125b" wrote above, who exactly goes to a club with all the noise and alcohol and laughters and screams to listen for "hifi" quality music?
And who is going to notice "distortion at 20khz" in a club
No criticism here just see no point in testing this sort of gear.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Next time I want to spin my vinyl copy of "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Baby" in a room with a revolving Disco ball and 200 dancing fools, this is the unit I'll want to help me get it done.

Nice Review, Amir.

 

[charlielaub]

Well, that's a piece of equipment I did not expect to see reviewed here. But I am happy to come across more than e.g. only the cutting edge in amplifiers, etc. reviewed in order to keep it all in perspective. It is also fun to read reviews of "vintage" gear that was once highly respected to see how it stacks up against modern measurement equipment and methodologies! Keep up the good work here, @amirm .