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DN-HD2500 Reviews |
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Welcome to the review section of dn-hd2500.com. We'll post any reviews here, from websites, magazines, dj's etc etc.
So if you see a review we haven't mentioned, please let us know.
Alternatively, if you have a dn-hd2500 and wish to do a review, please send it in along with pictures of your setup !
Contents
DJ Mag Review
This review is straight out of the pages of DJ Magazine for March/April 2007.Please note that these images are over 1 meg in size each. Click on the image to see the larger version !
BigBoss Man Review
This review comes from Big Boss Man, over at http://www.mobiledjforums.com !Well, I had a good 20 minutes on it or so and the initial impressions were very good, typical Denon quality. In terms of depth, it's about 4" or so which may seem quite a lot, ok it is a lot, but consider what's inside this beast it's not surprising.
The screen albeit small is very intuitive, very very clear and easy to read, I made a point about the fact if you could get one deck to take over the screen rather than just half of it, that would be quite neat. Wether this would ever appear on a software upgrade is anyone's guess, but to be honest it really didn't matter.
Searching was a breeze, although the player only had a couple of thousand tracks on it. Exactly how it would fare if there was 20,000 tracks is anyone's guess although using a keyboard would probably make your life easier. Searching is actually not so bad, and you can search on many different parameters (artist, title, album, year, bpm). Eskie/Jack/Tony/The fresh looking one made a point about being able to search for ranges in years and bpm, but also to take note of the current bpm and pitch/tempo slider, a little bit of artificial intelligence if you like. I also made a suggestion about AI and the ability to "remember" which tracks you've played before and after a particular song, so maybe when you're searching for inspiration, the software could offer a number of selections based on previous choices - something for the future maybe!
A real neat feature is that if a deck is playing, you could cue up the next track on the same deck, hit play - and it would crossfade into the track you've just selected. Handy for those moments when you're playing a song, someone comes up and asks for a blinding tune, and instead of setting it up on the opposite deck (where you may already have another tune selected) you just do it on the currently playing deck. So effectively, you have 4 decks here.
All the usual looping functions are there, as are cue points (hot starts) which are all stored within the mp3 file itself. Effects are included on board, I had great fun with the flanger effect, something I would not normally consider using in my usual set, but can see the benefits.
The software isn't 100% yet, I wasn't able to crash it although at times it would act a bit odd, buttons not being responsive, but I put this down to not actually knowing the product yet and blaming it on my random button pressing.
Not many niggles or downsides, apart from the depth, and the location of the power button. As it's in the recessed portion of the case where the audio outputs are - should the software ever crash you would really have to take it out of the case to reset it. You could turn the power off to the rack, but in most cases this would stop the music completely at your gig as you would have no power to the rest of your rack which would no doubt contain the mixer, etc. I made a suggestion that a very small reset button on the fascia would be a good idea, much like what you get on most PDA's these days. Something that you can only press with a paperclip for example. There are also no USB ports on the face, that would also be a good improvement. Obviously with chassis-mounted USB sockets being available there would be no hardship in adding one to a rack anyway, but the option would be nice for simplicity.
Tech asked if Denon are likely to release a better model, much like Cortex did with the HDC-1000, and then announced the 3000 and desktop 5000 shortly after. Mr. "Gary" Denon said that "as far as he is aware, certainly in the next 6 months there are no new releases planned". Make of this what you will, but i'm sure that by the end of the year, a HD2600 will be available with all of the added bells and whistles that users have asked for.
Typical Denon built quality, they've never really released a bad product (apart from the 1800F) and this is no exception. When you play with it, you will see, it is an amazing piece of kit, and well worth placing a pre-order on. Denon say that as far as the street price goes, you're going to be looking at around £699 which I don't think is a huge amount of money. It certainly puts it within the same price range as a decent(ish) laptop.
Talking about laptops, and indeed computers in general - if you're used to big screens and seeing your playlist occupying a good 30-40% of the screen you're looking at, you may be well thinking that this product is not for you. As a software user of many years, I looked at this with an open mind. The screen is so easy to read and use, it made me feel comfortable right from the beginning. As for the market it's aimed at, I would say it's more aimed at the CD jock who wants to make the move to digital without the hassle of worrying about the stability of a computer system.
The software which drives the thing is stored on a flash chip rather than on the internal hard drive which has immediate benefits. It's easily upgradeable with a simple download of the internet and comes with database management software to help manage your music library. As to wether you can control any aspect of the HD2500 at a gig with your laptop connected is anyone's guess, as I didn't ask, but this may be something for the future also.
All in all, it's a damn fine product, and listening to people at the SEDA meeting last night, they all thought that too. If you're holding out for the Cortex 3000 or the Numark D2, forget it, place a pre-order for a HD2500, you will not regret your decision.
I would give it 8 out of 10. Add a USB port on the face and a reset button and it gains my extra 2 marks.
Job well done Denon!
