Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS2 DJ Review

[pavuol]

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.

Sorry but many readers value Amir and this site just for such eclectic approach in testing gear. IMO there could be far more use scenarios, how about private family meetings/ birthday parties, when the SPL is conscious and music chosen ist exquisite (or eclectic as well, if you like)..? Time has come we could demand performance across various gear and also manufacturers should be more aware, that there is "someone somewhere" who can test their gear not just by ear

 

[Scytales]

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:
View attachment 476146

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:

As far as the particular phenomenon illustrated by the above quoted measurement is concerned, it would be interesting to check if these sidebands around the 20 kHz tone still appear with input sample frequencies other than 44.1 kHz, such as 48 kHz and its multiples or some unusual numbers.

 

[amirm]

The FFT was at 48 KHz.

 

[Scytales]

Thanks! Then, it would be interesting to see if this behavior at 20 kHz persists or change with input signal at 44.1 kHz and multiples.

 

[French Meloman]

The examination of this type of product is fun and interesting because it shows that you can have very good capabilities in a console designed primarily for recreational use. Given the performance gap between the two channels, there is a good chance that the channel displaying degraded performance suffers from a component that is no longer functioning correctly. Nevertheless, the other channel shows an ability to process 16-bit audio correctly, which actually represents the bulk of the production and what we listen to. In this context, I refrain from evaluating it. Otherwise, based on the performing channel, it would certainly be positive.

 

[Tell]

For all you complaining that this doesn't belong here because discotechs are badsounding environments bla bla, first off nobody goes to "discos" anymore, they disappeared like half a decade ago ;/
And secondly these are used in many different places, personally I've heard them a lot outside on huge Funktion One rigs, Void, L Acoustics etc, and tuned correctly you can very much get hifi quality, especially when there's no room to consider. There's also a lot of electronic music that's very well mixed and mastered making it a very delightful experience!

 

[EJ3]

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

But if one disco had better sound than another (and all other reasons for visiting a disco were approximately equal), that is the one that I would gravitate to, in hopes of finding a partner that also appreciated better quality sound audio (at the higher volumes that I am inclined to play them at in my home).
From that perspective, I am out of the game, however, as (at the age of 48 [20 years ago]) I got married (and still am).
I never thought to ask her if she liked music. But discovered that she doesn't like music (of any type) after we married.
The good thing was that we would spend months at a time apart due to our work travels.
But now we are retired & together a lot more. Meaning that I get to listen as I like only when she is out of the house. And I am home, alone.
The rest of the marriage is so good that it is not worth fighting about. Just that when she comes in, she says "I could hear it when I pulled into the driveway, with the car windows up". And I say "Yep, as it should be".
Nothing else is said about it & we just do go on doing what we do normally when we are together.
So all is good.

 

[Billy Budapest]

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

Pics;

View attachment 476151

View attachment 476152

View attachment 476153

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View attachment 476157


JSmith

Really wild looking internals.

 

[heraldo_jones]

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

I'm not gonna list all electronics styles of course, but: EDM, dubstep, phonk, hardcore, dark synth, dark electro, D'n'B, industrial ... the list goes on, all of those are mimimum at -5 lufs.

 

[Tell]

I'm not gonna list all electronics styles of course, but: EDM, dubstep, phonk, hardcore, dark synth, dark electro, D'n'B, industrial ... the list goes on, all of those are mimimum at -5 lufs.

There are of course loooads of different electronic music, but I'm my experience says around between 5-10. I listen to much psychedelic weird bass music, glitchy stuff, psytrance, triphop, dubstep, breakbeat and random undefined stuff. A thing to remember though is that music with lots of bass will by nature score less on dynamic range even if it's actually mastered quite nicely (even if I'd always prefer less compression).

 

[DBASQL]

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

I'll send a 3000x any time, the sound quality is is touted as much improved.

 

[milosz]

I think that in club environments and club / DJ venues nobody would care that there is distortion above 10 kHz. If they could even hear sound up that high.

Remember all THD products from a 10 kHz signal will be at 20 kHz or above. Very few people above the age of 13 can hear above 17 kHz. As far as the distortion of 20 kHz signals as reported by Amir - well perhaps dogs visiting the club might notice. Any THD affecting a 20 kHz signal will be at 40 kHz or above.

The distortion problems found here indicate that there are some engineering shortfalls, but I think that such compromises are appropriate for the class of product. If Pioneer had thrown cubic dollars at the thing while in development it could certainly have been better, but then it would have to be sold at unaffordable prices. We do live in a real world, after all/

 

[amirm]

FYI the owner uses it as a plain DAC in his home system. He likes the look of this.

 

[gambit]

FYI the owner uses it as a plain DAC in his home system. He likes the look of this.

Thank you Amir,
Yes - I love the look of it, it reminds me of good nights out and sits right next to a Technics 1200Mk5G. If you're not into your club tracks then I expect it's got way too many knobs and lights for your living room.
But am I, and I love it.
I use it as a transport, utilising the coax output. A post in this forum gave me the idea, after someone suggested it to a poster wanting a slot loading CD player.
The NXS2 is the last CDJx000 which plays CDs - and it's the first CDJx000 that supports FLAC - both formats i have a good amount of audio in.

Sorry that I only had one to test folks.
Given its Pioneer (IE not a small company with no test equipment) and hardly an obscure line, I going to assume the good channel is how they designed it, and the bad channel indicates a fault - sucks for me - but I was using Coax, so...

From Pioneer:

D/A Converter	Asahi Kasei DAC (AK4490EQ)
Soundcard	24 bit/96 kHz
Signal-to-Noise Ratio	115 dB
Distortion	< 0.0018 %
Audio Output Level	2.0 Vrms (1 kHz, 0 dB)
Frequency Range	4 - 40000 Hz

 

[JSmith]

Yes - I love the look of it, it reminds me of good nights out and sits right next to a Technics 1200Mk5G. If you're not into your club tracks then I expect it's got way too many knobs and lights for your living room.
But am I, and I love it.

Hey, cheers for sending this device in for testing and I get the whole DJ look setup, sitting next to a Technics.


JSmith

 

[Waxx]

It's clear one channel is broken. These were unofficially tested in the dj world years ago and found close to neutral (like the good working channel) and both channels were balanced (very close to each other). I would consider the good working channel as the one that says how they came from factory. And if you want to be sure, test a good working one, not one with a fault in one of the channels (altough this measurements also tell something so are still valuable.

A lot of clubs that focus on sound quality use external convertors on the spdif output to go to their mixers. RME Fireface is a popular dac for that scenario, and they claim it sounds better. But most will use it with the (same generation) Pioneer DJM-900NXS2 or modern equivalents and connect it digitaly, not analog so they can use serato or record box to control all settings and presets. That is how 90+% of the users of this device will use it. Very few use the analog out these days as you loose some functions of the device.

I've used it extensivly in the radio studio i work every week with a Rane Xone mixer (analog connected), and on the 8030C monitors i have there they sound very neutral to me if i connect them almost direct (no radio processing). They are very reliable workhorses for dj's altough, not hifi media players but their quality is as good as the best hifi cd players i know in reality.

 

[heraldo_jones]

There are of course loooads of different electronic music, but I'm my experience says around between 5-10. I listen to much psychedelic weird bass music, glitchy stuff, psytrance, triphop, dubstep, breakbeat and random undefined stuff. A thing to remember though is that music with lots of bass will by nature score less on dynamic range even if it's actually mastered quite nicely (even if I'd always prefer less compression).

I haven't listened in my life to any eletronic music song with a short term LUFS of -10. Maybe you are refering to integrated LUFS.

 

[Somafunk]

Nice to see the most popular deck being tested, shame to see the results though.

All of my mates had/have these decks (must be at least dozen between us) or the newer models as we used to “do” a number of festivals/large gatherings/raves so to speak
, I even had one years ago as it was “the” deck(s) to have, I’ll have to point them to this review and place “worries” in their brains

 

[Multicore]

Nice to see the most popular deck being tested, shame to see the results though.

All of my mates had/have these decks (must be at least dozen between us) or the newer models as we used to “do” a number of festivals/large gatherings/raves so to speak
, I even had one years ago as it was “the” deck(s) to have, I’ll have to point them to this review and place “worries” in their brains

Thanks for the photo.

Can you explain what the device is for? Is it for playing CDs? If so, does that mean all of your mates lug cases of CDs to gigs?

A DJ-specific HW UI and audio interface that controls your DJ app on the laptop would not need to be so big.

 

[Somafunk]

It can play cds or you use a usb thumb drive and use the deck to play/select/manipulate the tracks/stems/loops whatever you have on the drive.