DN-HD2500 Professional Media Controller.... - - - From Nought to Music in 14 seconds...

Note: Copyright DJs United 2007 - no cut'n'pasting or other copying of contents allowed. You may however link to this topic from elsewhere..

Ask almost any DJ what he or she considers to be the down-side of DJ’ing, the bit that they don’t like about the role – and you’ll probably be told “lugging all the gear and records and CDs around”. Ask the same question of a DJ at 2am, along the 50metre path between the venues fire exit and the van, in sub-zero temperatures, with torrential rain creating a new Drum & Bass tune on the van roof, and you’ll probably be told to stop asking stupid questions and make yourself useful by bringing out some more CD and Album cases..

IIn DJs own minds, another de-moralising factor of DJ’ing is knowing “for sure” that you’ve got “that track” somewhere in your dozen music cases, but despite dozens of frantic searches in-between your mic announcements etc, you’ve failed to find it by the end of the night. Usually, you then find the elusive LP or CD “looking at you” as you start clipping the lids back on, as everyone’s leaving, prior to your multiple “swims” back and forth the van.

Advancements in harddrive technology, and its plummeting pricing have meant that storing all of your tunes on a hard disk drive has been possible at a very modest cost. Sadly however, the mix’n’match modular nature of computers has meant that getting a compatible, reliable and above all, professional, “works for all” way of controlling such a hard drive(s) has been somewhat illusive and leaving a percentage of DJs having a system which does not perform as reliably, error-free and straight-forward as they’d like. This is where the Denon DN-HD2500 Professional Media Controller comes in.

Whilst being very expandable (it can address over two hundred thousand tracks when using external drives) - The DN-HD2500 doesn’t rely on one company’s hardware, another company’s operating system, and a different companies software and firmware all working properly (or not) with each other. This means no conflicting technical support teams telling you that their sound card works fine, go talk to the motherboard people, or the Application software firm, or Microsoft or, or, or well, anyone apart from them. (“our bit works, must be their bit mate”)..

The DN-HD2500 is finally “Hard drives without the hard times”, viability without virus threats, operability without overheating, DJ’ing without driver clashes, running hard drives with reliability.

Give that domestic laptop to the kids for “Solitaire” and “Minesweeper” - evolution has finally grown to meet the needs of the professional DJ. The DN-HD2500 quite happily dedicates “Viola Wills – Gonna Get along without you now” to a Mr B Gates, albeit without the mic announcements.

The DN-HD2500 gives you the ability to search for, play and mix tunes together. Those tunes can be stored on the units internal 40gb hard drive, and upto 4 (yes 4) external USB storage devices – such as hard drives, Pen/jump drives, iPods, and even from camera/mobile phone memory cards via a suitable USB Card reader.

For users looking for even more flexibility and performance above other offerings, the DN-HD2500 can also be connected to a professional dual CD-drawer unit for incorporating regular CD’s which either you haven’t had change to rip yet, or that your clients might hand you, right into your show – instantly and most importantly with full DJ controllability and functionality including precise bi-directional cueing, pitching, seamless looping

DJs looking for a unit that will not only keep pace with their music collection size, but also expand their creativity and aid to smooth running shows, the DN-HD2500 has a veritable palette of features to choose from, including several built-in filters and effects inc. BPM linked effects, 2 hot starts per drive, both of which can be converted instantly into seamless loops(3 inc Cue), a touch sensitive platter for searching, pitch bending and scratching, Key Adjust (avoiding those Darth Vaders and Mickey mouses, when using pitch controls), User adjustable presets which allow you to set the unit to perform exactly how you want it to, automatically crossfading playback of tracks, Pitch bend +/- buttons, Adjustable time jump-search buttons.

Perfect Pitch:
The DN-HD2500 also has user selectable pitch settings ranging from +/- 4% with an enviable 0.02% step increment for really accurate, long-running beat mixing, with other ranges being +/-10%, 16%, 24%, 50% and 100% (if you’ve never told ‘em during The Rowing Boat Song, that the tide is coming in and that they’re going to have to row at +50%...you’ve never laughed.)

Whilst all functions, including searching can be performed from the front panel controls, The DN-HD2500 also enables you to add a USB keyboard which allows you not only to quickly enter search details, but also allows you to have keyboard shortcuts for various controller tasks. This almost “remote” control, could prove useful if you ever wished that your CD controls were a bit nearer your lighting controls at certain times of the night – just take your USB keyboard controlling the 2500, over to your lighting controller...

Open the box, Open the box...
The relatively small (by Denon standards) box contains the DN-HD2500, a refreshingly slender user manual, and a CD featuring the Denon DJ Music Manager Software. This PC software is not needed to perform in a domestic PC or laptop alongside the DN-HD2500 at a gig – indeed the whole idea of the DN-HD2500 is that only professional hardware accompanies you on-stage not domestic laptops or PCs. The Music manager software is something which you’d simply install on your home PC or possibly Mac (if Macs Boot Camp will comply).

Denon DJs Music manager software allows you to create an index of what music files are on your PC or its external drives, transfer them onto your DN-HD2500 and even create playlists of those titles and transfer those onto your DN-HD2500 too. For those who like to store their tunes BPM in ID tags etc, the software even lets you play the tunes and tap an on-screen button which then calculates the BPM and stores that alongside the tune for you. Backup and Restore features are covered within the program too.

Another Dimension
The Denon DN-HD2500 is a 19inch (482mm) wide rack mount controller, which can also be used on a table-top, thanks to it’s rubber feet on the rear of the unit. For those installing in a rack, the unit takes up 3 Rack unit spaces, that’s 132mm high. The units depth is 108mm, but has no rearward facing connectors or power leads – so, unlike other units, you don’t need to add 30-40mm to that measurement to allow for phono/RCA plugs, IEC kettle plugs etc,etc... The 2500’s construction is very sturdy and very much “all there” with its tough metal construction, which will be a familiar feel to the increasing number of DJs using Denons other products, and a welcoming sight to those who are comparing the Denon DN-HD2500 against some of the not so rugged other offerings appearing on the hard drive controller market.

All the DN-HD2500’s connectors are sideways facing in a generously recessed section to the left (looking from the back) of the unit. This recessed area incorporates the audio outputs. Each of the two decks/sides of the DN-HD2500 has phono/RCA sockets for Left and Right analogue audio,

The DN-HD2500 offers several fader start options, via two 3.5mm socket for control by a suitable mixer – meaning that most mixers (not just Denons own) with some form of fader start will successfully start the relevant side of the 2500 as you lift the channel fader, or move the crossfader – depending on the mixers capabilities. The 2500 even offers you options as to what you want it to do when you bring your mixers fader down again eg: Do you want it to go back to the initial cue point, or simply pause the track at that point? Forward thinking DJs, who feel that this step into the digital age might not be their last, will be please to note that digital out RCA/Phono sockets have not been left off of the 2500, enabling it to be connected digitally to the increasing number of mixers with coaxial digital inputs.

Also in the rear recessed area is a USB “A” socket, and a USB “B” socket, and the special mini-din type connector for plugging in the CD-drawer units from either a DN-D4000, or a DN-D4500 (The DN-D4500 drawer units are shortly going to be available separately, under the model number BU-4500). Finally, this recessed area features a 1.5 metre (approx) captive power lead (cant fall out mid-show) and a push on/off power switch which is shrouded to prevent accidental powering off – which, let’s face it, can be a little embarrassing during the show.

It’s a very worthy mention that should the unit be switched off, by say, a trigger-happy noise limiter device in a village hall, a bumbling old caretaker, or non-tea-totalling roadie (Hic), the DN-HD2500 will be ready to play music for you again within 14 seconds of the power coming back on. This slashes a couple of minutes off of most similarly power-staved laptops or PCs, which wouldn’t normally have finished advertising Microsoft Windows, loading zillions of drivers loading etc, let alone opening of the DJ application and picking a track to play.

Sorry, I can’t wait any longer...as we’ve mentioned POWER already, I’ve just got to tell you about this...

How many of you guys and girls have the opportunity of playing several nights on the trot, in the same venue, with the grace of being able to leave the gear set-up each night? Christmas Dinner dances perhaps? You rush to the venue for 18:30 to put on background music each night, then kick your heels, scribble all over your Sudoku and look longingly at the patrons devouring 600lbs of turkey and pud for the next two hours, until finally, they finish eating at about 9:00, ready for you to start selecting those floor-filling tracks ‘til 12 or 1am...? Sound familiar?

The DN-HD2500 has a “Power Play” feature which allows you to tell it to start playing a favourites playlist of upto 99 songs of your choice (that’s an average of 400 minutes, or 6.5 hours) as soon as the power comes on, without any buttons being pressed, and without you having to leave written (and lost) instructions for the venue staff. Just plug your audio in to a time switch set to come on at 6:29pm and...hey presto... all the background music you need for the arrival and meal, gently crossfading and blending from one track to the next too – but more on that later. See you behind the disco at 9pm then...rather than at 6:30?

Whilst some may be quite rightly concerned about “POPS!” bursting over the speaker system with all their audio gear being powered up at once, owners of –most- newer audio need not worry as amplifiers and many equalisers and compressor/limiters etc have Soft-on protection, or solenoid isolators which mean that the output stages aren’t switched on until 2 or 3 seconds after power is applied.

Uniquely within the hard drive controller market, the front panel of the DN-HD2500 boasts enough controls to prevent it from looking sparsely child-like, or as or drab as a cash machine, but without being overly complex or crowded. The centre of the panel features an incredibly sharp high quality LCD display measuring over 100mm.

The displayed characters are extremely crisp and feign a black, or perhaps very very dark grey text on an illuminated soft white background. The edges of the letters don’t suffer from any of the fuzziness or halo-ing that you often get on LCD displays, such as those blocky ones showing the time on cheap DVD players. Even the smallest font which the 2500 displays, when you push “Title/Info” to call up the full track details is perfectly legible.

Whilst this very easy to read display is of course smaller than the screen of a domestic laptop, those laptop users wishing to upgrade to the 2500, wont be losing as much display as they might have first thought. Sure a laptop TFT screen is typically 14inchs – but nearly all the “Be a DJ” type software turns the top half of that screen into a pretend 19inch rack mount dual controller with little clickable play and cue buttons, virtual platter jog wheels, phoney LCD time remaining countdowns etc, etc – you don’t need that mimicry on the 2500 as it is, of course, a real 19inch controller with its own play buttons, jog wheels etc... With half the screen accounted for, many dj software programs fill a fair percentage of the remaining 50% of the screen with either questionable waveforms, or visualisations, album art etc. Often, only a small percentage of the Lappys remaining screen space is offered for track searching.

The 2500 ensures that the important information like, “how many seconds have I got left of the current track?” and “What Pitch is this track playing at?” etc, are right there for you, but with the lower half of its screen adapting - displaying what you need, when you need it, cleverly maximising the screen space in a context sensitive way. More on this is covered below regarding Searching.

Total Contrast
The screen features a contrast adjustment which notable for some very notable reasons. Firstly, it has a very wide range of adjustment to match more or less any lighting conditions; you definitely wont be saying that you cant really tell the difference here. Also, (and this is the really good bit) the contrast setting is NOT some loose and vibration sensitive thumb wheel control – the contrast setting is stored by the DN-HD2500 digitally. Eg: Contrast = 83 This way, once you’ve mounted your 2500 into your sloping mixer flightcase and have adjusted the screen settings to your liking – that’s it – you may never need to adjust the contrast again, regardless of how many bumpy cobbled hotel courtyards or cattlegrids you and you gear go o o o o o o v v v v e e e r r r r r...in your travels.

Directly below the screen are buttons for functions which you may only need a few times, if at all, during the night. Sensibly therefore, these low-usage buttons are kept out of the way, and are low-profile.

Below these buttons are two (one for each side of the unit) Parameter knobs – these not only turn (with no limit) clockwise and anti-clockwise, but also push down with a very positive tactile click. These buttons are key (no pun intended) to the high speed searching which the 2500 offers its users.

Apart from the crispy central display, everything on the left hand side of the controller is the same as the controls on the right hand side.

The most frequently used buttons, Play and Cue for example, are larger than the other buttons and internally illuminate at the right times – eg: When a song is ready, all cued up etc, the Cue button will illuminate accordingly.

Might as well...JUMP (quick jump)
Alongside the display are the Quick Jump buttons. These allow you to jump forward or backward rapidly through a track. So...if you’ve a track that’s 4 minutes long, and you want to get to the part that’s 1 minute in, you can do so, quickly. How quickly? Well that, thankfully, is up to you. The DN-HD2500 allows you to set the Quick Jump Buttons to jump you either 10, 20, 30 or 60 seconds upon each press of the buttons. So...whichever of these time periods appeals most to you, is remembered by the 2500, and remembers that setting even between gigs.

Pimp my Deck...
Want to change some of the “Factory Settings” on your gear? Well, the “Quick Jump” button settings mentioned above aren’t the only settings on the DN-HD2500 which are remembered by the unit, from gig to gig. Like many other Denon decks, the 2500 has a full range of “Presets”. Presets are a list of menu options, which you can set once, exactly as you’d like them to be – and they’ll stay that way until you, yourself go into change them.

Here are some of the other customisable options which you can set’n’forget in the 2500’s Preset menu:

“Cue Mode:” Choose between Denons cueing method or the “other” mode which some other manufacturers use.

“Auto Cue Level”: Choose what level music should exceed, when the 2500 automatically sets the cue point for you.

“Crossfade Time”: Choose the length of time you’d like the 2500 take over crossfades between one track and the next, when you’ve chosen the crossfade option. Eg: For smoothly blended, gap free, background music.

“Crossfade Level:” Choose the dB level at which the incoming track starts playing, when crossfading takes place. The track increases to “normal” level during the crossfade time (set above).

“Pitch Range:” The pitch slider offers various ranges from the really sensitive +/- 4% with a pitch increment of 0.02%, a +/- 10%, +/-16%, +/-24%, +/-50% and even +/-100% - any of the first 4 of these settings can be chosen in the Presets, and you can change them on-the-fly at any time.

“End Of... message”: The screen features a graphic line which gradually “runs out” in the last few seconds of the track, giving you a visual indication that its time to stop flirting with that member of the opposite gender with the really big... and get back to work !... How many seconds warning would you like? 10 seconds? 15? 20? 30? 60? 90 seconds? Depends on how interesting that blonde is to talk to, I suppose.

“Pitch Adjust on/off. “ The DN-HD2500 offers a very good quality Key Adjust (aka: Master Tempo) which means that you wont get vocals sound like Darth Vader or Mickey mouse when you’re adjusting the pitch control to big numbers. Key Adjust also does a fine job of hiding those otherwise audible wows and flutters that can arise when you pitch bend a track eg: when bringing it into sync with another track. OK, so...quite a few decent DJ systems have this feature (except the Cortex 1000)...but...how many times have you forgotten to switch the feature on, only to be reminded of it when the audio slurs at you (and your audience). This setting allows you to set the Pitch Adjust/Key Adjust to be on from the word “go”, every time that you power up.

“Single / Continuous Play and Play Lock:”
Like Key Adjust (above) many DJ units offer single play – this is where the unit simply stops playing at the end of the track – it doesn’t blunder on into the next track on the CD or playlist, which lets face it, can be a little embarrassing when if you leave the fader open/up after the previous song finished... Similarly many units wont let you eject a CD when the tracks playing either, to save you from an even more embarrassing length of silence. BUT...the Play Lock feature on the DN-HD2500 means that you cant accidentally change to a different track while the current track is playing – all too easy to do on some other units.

“Time Display: Elapsed / Remain.”
Yes, its another one of those settings which you forget to set, until panic sets in. I personally prefer to have the timer show me how many minutes and seconds I’ve got left until the end of the track – so if I look at the display and it says 3 minutes, I know I’m safe for music for 3minutes. Its usually 29 seconds later when you realised, in the silence, that the timer was showing how far into the track it had got. This setting lets you choose “Remaining time” or your own favourite setting, again right from power up, every power up. This feature also gives you options for showing Playlist Remaining time, and Playlist Elapsed Time... eg: 6 hours, 22 minutes and 15seconds to go... time for a curry then..?

“Search System” – how the search system for music behaves is a critical task on a hard drive unit, so why put up with the one way that the manufacturer thinks of. That way isn’t going to be the right way for all the worlds DJs. Choose what’s right for you. You can get the 2500 to ask you for Artist name first, or song title first, or album, or genre, year, BPM etc or even a 2 step search to really narrow down long long lists of results. You’d rather scroll through 15 tracks rather than 1500, when theres only 20 seconds of music left on the current track, yes? More on the important subject of searching below.

“Audio Curve” – This is a simple on/off control which will mean nothing to you, unless you have one of those not so final scratchy playback PC programs.

“Turntable Tricks” – On/Off – Allows the jog wheel / platter to be usable during the Brake mode.

Some of the units features which are included in the presets, such as “Elapsed” vs “Remaining” time, or “Continuous Play” vs “Single play” can still be changed instantly using the DN-HD2500s front panel controls, without having to go back into presets. This means that if your preference is for the unit to power up in “Single” mode (where the unit goes into Cue/Pause mode at the end of each track), but during a gig, you agree to play the non-stop, continuously mixed latest Misery of Sound compilation CD that the bride handed you, you can simply flick the Cont/Single button, rather than having to go into Presets Menu. The Presets menu can be accessed on either drive, at any time that a track is selected but not playing – which, thinking about it, is exactly the time that you’d probably want to change a preset.

Search for a Star.
OK, let’s say you’ve just powered up the 2500, have gotten over the mesmerising power up display visuals, and want to find a song to play. The screen of a 2500 will show your main search options “Artist, Song Title, Genre, BPM, Year, Album” etc.... one of which will be highlighted - here’s how easy it is:

* Turn the parameter knob so that the field that you want to search on, highlights (for example) “Artist” – Push the knob down.
* A list of artists is displayed, scroll through the list using the parameter knob to (say) “Abba” – and push the parameter knob.
* A list of songs by that artist will appear (“Arrival”, “Dancing Queen”, “Money Money Money” etc), turn the parameter knob until “Dancing Queen” is highlighted and press the parameter knob again.
* Almost instantly the red “CUE” light will illuminate, meaning that the song is ready to play (or cue up, if you prefer)
* Press PLAY.

Unlike some most “cost effective” or “Budget” hard drive control panels, the 2500 wont keep you and your audience waiting (or ruin a beatmatched mix for you) – the 2500 has a proper instant start. For further refined cueing and time saving, the 2500 has a user adjustable “Auto Cue” feature which automatically sets the cue point (start point) to RIGHT in-front of where the music starts in the tune – not simply the 00:00:00 beginning of the data file. This means that you wont get awkward, silent gaps and pauses before the music starts – just music, straight away, when you push the button. The adjustable dB level can be set once, or reset (or switched off) as few or as many times as you wish. This adjustable level is really useful, as you sometimes get tracks with several seconds of low level meandering ambient drivel that you just want to cue straight past, onto when the real music actually comes in – OK, since all music is different (except Oasis, it could be said) the feature might home in on some peak level in amongst the ambient drivel, rather than the first actual beat of the bass, but it still serves to save you time. For example....The intro to Jeff Becks: Hi Ho Silver Lining has about 6 seconds of what sound (for the first 10 or 20 years of DJing) worryingly like microphone feedback gradually building in volume. The auto queue wont cue the song up to the first beat on this track, but will get you about 5.5 seconds through Mr Becks feedback.

The searching mode above is what Denon call a “1-step search” eg: You just search for one criteria at a time eg: Show me everything instantly by such’n’such artist...or....show me everything from such’n’such year....which you then scroll through. The 2500 also offers 2-step searching, which many of you with larger databases of music, or those running tight genre/year related shows will find really helpful and time saving. In 2-step searching, you can choose any TWO categories to search by, giving you a much shorter short list when searching – for example: “Show me only tracks with –Love- in the title on Now Albums’ or “Only Cliff Richard in years beginning 196” (this last search would bring up all Cliff hits in 1960, 1961, 1962 etc.... all the way upto 1969).

Handed to you on a Platter.
Searching for tracks using either the 1-step, or 2-step process is easy enough, although if you’ve got a lot of results on-screen eg: 200 song titles all beginning with “A” you might think that you’re in for a quite a lot of scrolling with the parameter knob.
However, during search operations, the large touch sensitive platter allows you to effortlessly spin your way quickly and easily through long lists – especially aided by the momentum that you can build-up on the platter. The display of the 2500 stays blur free and keeps up perfectly with the data regardless of how fast you choose to scroll the results, allowing you to easily ensure that you don’t overshoot and have to turn the platter back the other way.

The touch sensitive platter is also cleverly able to function as two large buttons. Regardless of the platters orientation (eg: after a fine good spin) touching the platter between the 12oclock and 6 oclock positions (right half) will act as “Enter/Select”, and touching the platter between the 6 oclock and 12oclock (left half) will act as “Back/undo”.

For even faster text entry and searching, any USB keyboard can be attached to the DN-HD2500. With a keyboard connected, you can not only swiftly input search details, but also use non-alphanumeric keys to control certain other functions on the DN-HD2500 – eg: Back, Enter/Select, Next Track, change between inputting into left or right decks etc. “Whoops controls” such as buttons which if accidently pressed, would stop a playing track, or start a cued track blaring out, are NOT replicated/assigned via a USB keyboard.

If you’ve got external devices connected, each one is selectable pre-search by pressing the “Source” button, which brings up a simple icon display at the top of the screen – showing all/any connected devices eg: USB1, CD, USB2 etc...

How doz it dooz dat?
Some people who have played with more basic hard drive controllers, and some Windows based applications for that matter, have found that searching for tracks to be slow and laborious, where the entire hard drive is ploughed, filename by filename displaying matches as it comes across matches. Sometimes, these sluggish searches may simply be down to inadequate processor power, or a combination of both. This takes up your time, gives the controller a hard time, is bus-bandwidth heavy (ties up the hard drive access routes), and far from ideal.

The DN-HD2500 takes an alternative and typically Denon route – offering instant search results, by doing all that heavy file info harvesting just the once and creating its own hyper-speed database per device. This quick and easy to activate procedure is started from a menu on the front panel of the DN-HD2500 and doesn’t require a PC or lappy to be present.

I kicked off the “Create Database” instruction an external hard drive linked to the DN-HD2500 via USB 2.0. The drive contained just over 48,000 tracks and the database creation process took around 10 minutes. Now, if you’ve already started thinking “hmmm, so if I’ve got 50000 files, the DN-HD2500 wont be able to start playing tunes for 10 minutes. Fear not. In true Denon fashion, the database creation can take place on one device, whilst the 2500 keeps your audiences entertained with music from another connected device. EG: Play background music from your Pendrive in USB 1, then start the “create database” option on the internal drive, or vice versa. This saves you having to get them all joining in for a rousing sing-along of “Ten Green Bottles”. (in fact, on some other manufacturers units, you’d better order a few more green bottles...)

Remember, you need only run the create database function once on a hard drive (not every gig), unless you change the contents. So, if you were planning on having one external hard drive full of tunes from the 50s,60s,70s,80s, & 90s – and then a different external harddrive for all the tunes from year 2000 onwards, you would NOT have to run the database creation instruction more than once ever on the 50s, 60s, (etc) drive. Only drives which you add (or remove) music files on need to have the database re-created. Easy.

The DN-HD2500 is compatible with both WAV files and the market leader in compressed file formats – MP3. Denon advise that they have no plans to add compatibility for the myriad of various other, lesser used compressed file formats. However, with DJ’s striving for higher and higher audio quality and larger and larger hard drives becoming cheaper and cheaper, going WAV, or sticking with the MP3 format isn’t likely to be an issue for anyone.

The DN-HD2500 supports MP3 files upto 320kbps in either Constant Bit Rate, or Variable Bit Rate (VBR). VBR files cannot be Quick Jumped through, or have memo data stored against them (These terms/features are covered later). Again, with hard drive costs continuing to plummet there should be no reason for anyone to have to rely on the slight space-saving tweaks which VBR offers to portable pod-type users.

Music files from original CD’s, in nearly all cases rip faster to WAV format, than to MP3 or any of the other compressed formats. And, if you’re thinking that you have to stick with MP3, just because you like being able to search your tracks by ID tag data (Eg: Artist, Track name, Music genre, Year, album name etc), you’ll be please to know that The DN-HD2500 also supports ID Metatag data in WAV (yes even in WAV) files. Ripping programs such as Audiograbber can automatically get tag information for you and imbeds that data into the WAV file itself.


Be prepared...
So, here’s a thought – Your Bride & Groom are due to have their first dance at 8 o’clock and at 7:55pm you’ve dutifully cued up their special song on the right hand side of the deck, with the left deck already playing out to the kids who have been monopolising the dancefloor so far by playing “run!-drop to your knees-and slide into the opposite wall” for the last hour. Low and behold, with a minute left of the current playing song, the bride and groom have both wandered off – but for how long?. You’d normally have one of those DJ the dilemmas... do you hope they come back, in the next 58 seconds, or do you ditch their song and cue up some ringtone track about an insane amphibian to keep the kids amused? The DN-HD2500 gives you another option, a much more workable one. Both sides of the 2500 have a Next File button. While a track is playing on either side of the 2500, you can press “Next File” and use all the usual search facilities to chose another track to play on the SAME side as is already playing out to the audience. You can then smoothly crossfade into the next chosen track. You can do this process again and again on the same side of the deck, keeping the important track ready for play at all times on the opposite deck, when the Bride & Groom finally re-appear.

The Next File feature also comes into its own when you –THINK- you’ve got the next couple of tracks all planned out in your mind, and the next one cued up ready to go, and then, with just 27 seconds left to play on the existing track, you decide that you’re going to inject a tune which is going to send your dancefloor right off the end of sanity and back again... Using Next File on the side of the 2500 which is currently playing, wont stop that track will you search – and force you to abandon the track already cued up on the other side. When you’ve selected the Next file, you can have it blend in, over the top of the playing track – all on the same channel of your mixer. This means you need never be caught out with one track ended, and nothing cued up on the other deck. But of course, we NEVER change our minds about the next track with only a few seconds left to go, do we..? humm de dum....de dum...

The crossfade abilities of the 2500 are quite notable. Not only can you crossfade from the playing track to the Next File track on the same side of the deck, but you can also utilise the crossfade in other ways too. The crossfader is also adjustable from 0 seconds upto 5 seconds and not only that but you can also adjust at what dB level the incoming track starts playing at when its first heard during the crossfade.

Brahms and lists.
Being able to locate individual tracks in less time than it takes R’n’B Tracy to fib about how she needs her request played right now, coz she’s got a taxi coming in ten minutes, is really great – but bring onto the scene – playlists.

Playlists are basically a list of stored songs which you want to group together. You can place upto 99 tracks into a playlist, and have upto 999 playlists on each device – so, if you’re using 4 external harddrives, you could have just under 4000 playlists externally, and that’s not even including the internal drive. To save you a headache, 99 tracks, assuming an average of 3.5 ~ 4 minutes per track, would give you over 6 hours of music. The 2500 will give you a running countdown of remaining playlist time...hmmmm 3 hours 24minutes huh? Should juuuust be enough time to pop to the loo and back in time...

The DN-HD2500 has a few more tricks up its metal sleeves with regards to playlists too. Playlists can not only be named eg: “Background music from the 80s”, “Kids party tunes”, “All my Country & Western Hits” etc, but you can also create categories to group multiple playlists within – for example: You could set up a category of “Christmas & New Year” and within that category, have playlists of “Dance Tunes” (Slade, Mariah Carey, Band Aid, Wizzard, pogues&Kirsty Mccoll etc), “Dinner/background tunes” (Spaceman came travelling, let it snow, last Christmas etc), “Ballads” (Perfect Christmas, Perfect Year, Happy New Year, Lonely this Christmas...etc).

When searching for a playlist, you can choose to call it up by name, or instead, you can choose to browse your categories first, and just see the playlists that you’ve got under that specific category. Just like the 1-step and 2-step searching offered by the 2500, which we discussed earlier, Playlist categories offer a great way of saving you having to look through what could otherwise be hundreds of lines of data.

The main thing to remember about playlists is that they are a great way of keeping related items together – you could say of course, that in good ol’ Microsoft windows, you can use folders to keep related tunes together, however theres a difference. With Playlists you are only storing each song once, even though you can include any particular song on any number of playlists. Eg: You might want to include “Rockin’ all over the world” under your playlists for “Pop rock”, “Party Tunes”, “Sing-a-long”, “Air guitar tracks”, “80’s tunes” etc, etc, etc... This is easily done and WONT store the song repeatedly as folders would do. Each playlist merely refers to the one stored track and plays it from its one location.

Also, with a playlist lasting for 99 tracks (over 6 hours), you’ll be able to start your playlists off from different starting points each night to stop the regular venue staff moaning about the same music order. Bonus!

As you’d expect, the DN-HD2500 allows you search through your playlist categories and at the playlists stored within those categories. However, above these playlist search options are two playlists which appear immediately for you to search through and play individual, or a continuous selection of tracks from. These are called “Favourites” and “Top 40”. Despite the numeric inference in the second of those lists, BOTH lists hold a maximum of 99 tracks. In these lists, you could store all your “find in a hurry” or “always used” tracks – The Dancing queens, the love shacks, the chart tracks etc. Even better, if your client has provided you with a list of tracks which they’d like you to play during the event, you can add them to one of these playlists, so that they’re always to hand.

As mentioned previously in this review, the “Favourites” playlist can be set to begin playback automatically, when power is applied to the unit... Neat!

Brahms and no lists…
So, we’ve seen how the DN-HD2500 can play music one file at a time, and we’ve seen how it can play a whole string of music from playlists. How about getting the 2500 to play a whole string of songs, without a pre-saved playlist being selected or a new one being programmed in? Wha? Surely it can’t?

Oh yes it can. The DN-HD2500 can smoothly work its way through ANY selection of tunes that you’ve got on-screen – not just programmed playlists. Say, for a really really cheesy example – you’re doing a little boys christening disco. You could search for all songs with the word “Boy” in the title. The screen will instantly display all the matches found by the DN-HD 2500 in its database. Simply select the first (or any other) song in those search results and hit the Play button (or lift your fader on your mixer if you’re using fader start leads). If the 2500 isnt already in “Continuous” play mode, set it that way, and select the “Crossfade” option just for good measure. Sure enough, the 2500 will play “Mad about the boy”, then smoothly crossfade into “lets hear it for the boy”, into “boys boys boys” etc,etc… in fact, you could even perform a search on the other side of the 2500 for all songs with “Girl” in the title and have one boy song, followed by one girl song, then another boy song… etc…lets hear more about the Relay option.

Musical Relay.
An entire playlist can be started from any track, not just the beginning, and will smoothly crossfade one track into the next – all on one side of the 2500 panel.

However, imagine this. You look out over your audience and you feel that only half of them will appreciate your playlist of “Mid-paced tunes from the 80’s” as they sit eating for the next 3 hours. The other half look like they lost all interest in music as they left Woodstock in the 70’s. Solution? Easy...select one of your 70’s playlists into the other side of the 2500 and press Relay Play. Your audience will now be treated to one 80’s tune, followed by one 70’s tune, then another 80’s tune and so on, all gently crossfaded into each other, until they’re ready for you to start the dancing off after the coffees.

Imagine this feature coming into play at Christmas Dinner dances too. You know how at the beginning of the Christmas season (eg: November 20th onwards), people don’t won’t the background music to be one Christmas song, after another, after another etc – the more sozzled guests spit Sage & Onion at you through comments of “it’s too early” (these are usually the same old trouts you’d see wandering around Sainsburys on Christmas eve afternoon asking staff why there’s no frozen turkeys left). So...let the 2500 play it clever for you... have a playlist set up which is one christmas background music track, followed by an ordinary non-seasonal track, followed by another Christmas track, then another non-seasonal track etc, a good couple of hours worth – say 30 tracks.

Set this playlist off on one side of the 2500, BUT set the 2500 into Relay Play and have one of your ordinary background music playlists running on the other side of the 2500. This will give your audience a Christmas tune, followed by 2 ordinary tunes, then a Christmas tune again...etc, all the way through the meal – even Scrooge should be able to keep his humbugs to himself for that.

Cumm on Fil’ter noise...(apologies to Slade Fans).
For DJs looking at having not only the control and reliability that they need straight away, but also having features and options which they can grow into later, the DN-HD2500 offers several different effects which can be easily applied over the top of tracks.

Like many other professional units, the 2500 doesn’t just have an all or nothing, on or off type switch for effect. Instead, a Wet/Dry control feature is used. If a track is played 100% Dry, it means that the music playing has no sound effect being applied to it at all. Likewise music which is playing 100% Wet, means that the applied effect is very strong or very audible. The Wet/Dry control allows you to gradually and smoothly bring in an effect, keep it running for as long as required, then gradually fade the effect out leaving only the raw dry un-effected track still there.

The 2500 allows its touch-sensitive platter to be used for adjusting the wet/dry. Due to the platters size and smooth, fluid movement, very fine tuning of the desired effect is combined with excellent response, whether applying slow steadily building effects or controlling rapid changes. Other adjustments to the effects, such as number of beats per effect cycle, are controlled by the units Parameter knob. Denon have thoughtfully allowed the DJ whether or not they want the parameters knob to include ¾ beat in its list of timing options, inbetween 1/1 and ½. Why? Well, ¾ can certainly add a certain uptempo additional backing kick to tracks – however as ¾ doesn’t mathematically fall into the pattern of Full, Half, quarter etc....you’d find that when you were beat-cutting a 4 beat echo loop, down to 2 beats, then down to 1, you’d get this weird ¾ timing mucking up the overall effect. Having the ability to switch off the ¾ beat option is therefore a welcome site to DJs who favour such techniques.

Each of the following effects are selected easily with their own smart silver push button on the front panel of the 2500 – so there’s no time lost in having to scroll through several effects to get to the one that you want (own up, who started singing Grease then...?). The different effects are listed here.

Flanger is a commonly known effect which adds a slowly rising and falling faint woosh to a track, and can be automatically linked to the BPM (beats per minute) of a track.

Echo Loop is almost two effects in one. Whilst the wet/dry control is below about 75% you get a BPM linked echo of the playing track. With the wet/dry control raised higher, into the 80%+, the audio is looped continuously until you bring the wet/dry control down once more. This effects length of loop can be adjusted using the parameter knob up to 8 beats (for most BPMs), or down to an 8th of a beat – allowing some great remixing potential with longer loops being maintained or shorted, or more rapid effects being created from fractions of a beat.

A useful facility is that if you have say 8 beats of a track set in an echo loop, permanently looping, you can now use the Next File feature on the same side of the 2500 to select the next track that you want to play. When you set the selected Next track off to play, the track that was previously playing (echolooped) will then fade away with a BPM linked right-on-the-beat tail echo.

Filter – this is really 3 effects in one. The parameters knob allows you to choose whether you’d like a High pass, medium pass, or low pass filter. These allow you to filter out the bass, or treble or (in the case of medium pass – Both bass and treble) frequencies from the original signal – great for mixing.

The settings for all these effects are remembered as you switch from effect to effect – meaning that some great instant-switching, or flip-flop type effects can be brought into play.

The DN-HD2500 also offers 3 platter style effects, which include.

“Brake” – making a sound like a vinyl turntable being abruptly stopped. How abruptly the sound stops is adjustable numerically by you – ranging from several seconds, down to a wonderfully short & sharp “JzupP!” (well, you try typing a word that sound like a braking music track...) type braking effect down at the short end of the scale.#

“Reverse” – instantly reverses the song that’s playing. A second press reverses the reverse to get your track playing forwards again.

“Dump” – (you’ll need some caffeine before reading this). Dump is a great way of adding a special ear-catching (like eye-catching...but audible) effect or perhaps more usefully, it’s a way of disguising rude words in songs. Dump is like reverse, but doesn’t lose track of where the playing track would have reached, if you hadn’t have pressed “dump” in the first place. Confused? Lets try this next example.

Say you’ve got a track with the following lyrics....

“Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Gold Hotel” (Ok, not stunning lyrics – but hey, it’ll probably still win Eurovision for Swveden) – for the sake of argument, we’ll say that each word is on-the-beat of the music.

And let’s say that the word “Foxtrot” in the above lyrics is a rude word, and you’re doing a disco at a convent school (or somewhere similarly tea-total).

If you press the “Dump” button after Echo is said, but before and after Foxtrot, what the audience will hear is a perfectly on-beat rendition of:

““Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo ohcE Gold Hotel” .

In the time slot where “Foxtrot” should have been, “Echo” was played, backwards..(ohcE) .then playback continued perfectly for “Gold” and “Hotel” etc...

(See, I told you that you needed some caffeine)...

The Dump function does have a time limit of around 5 seconds in a single press, complete with a countdown timer ticking on the bottom line of the display. However that should cover you for most tracks unless Disney ever brought out a rude version of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidoscious...”.


Off to a Hot Start...
The DN-HD2500 offers you two Hot start buttons (A1 and A2). Hot Starts are a great feature, whereby you can “mark” a particular, precise moment on a track and jump forward or back to it, resuming playback from that point – instantly. Unlike some other makes and models, the Hot Starts on the DN-HD2500 can be programmed simply and easily in succession, without needing to press any other “Record”, “Rec” or “Program” buttons beforehand. Both the hot start buttons are internally illuminated when.”loaded” and can be reset/cleared by holding down the “Flip” button, and either A1 or A2 respectively. Alternatively both A1 and A2 can be clear simultaneously by holding down “Flip” on its own for over 2 seconds.

The Hotstarts on most Denons are very versatile and have an two additional ways of working. Pressing “Flip” on its own briefly, flips the 2500’s Hot starts into stutter mode. This forces playback from your hotstarted point to only play whilst you are holding the button (A1 or A2) down – letting go of the hotstart button stops the sound. When you press the button again, the sound re-starts from the hotstarted point again – allowing perfect stutter starts and effects. A brief press of “Flip” flips the hotstarts back out of stutter mode, and back into normal playing mode. The main Cue button on either side of the 2500 performs stutter operations in exactly the same way.

The third way in which the hotstart buttons are utilised is that either or both of the A1 & A2 Hotstarts can be changed instantly into Seamless loops of any length by the DJ pressing the “B” button (alongside the A1 and A2 buttons) to mark where they want the end of the seamless loop to be. Both the beginning (A points) and the ends (B Points) of the loops are editable/trim-able) – so if your timing is a little bit off for setting the loop points, you can easily press “Trim”, press the button relating to the loop point which you want to adjust, move the platter either way whilst listening to the loop improve, then press the respective button when your loop is perfect.

All loops repeat seamlessly until you press Loop Exit, at which point the track continues normal playback from the end of the loop point as if nothing had happened. Seamless loops can be a great way of giving you a longer intro to talk over, or mix into, as well as a fine way of making a short, but crowd-pleasing track last longer.

Thanks for the Memo-ry.
We’ve already seen how, like many of the other items in the Denon DJ range, the DN-HD2500 allows you to set up Cue points, Hot Starts Points, Seamless Loops etc, which can all take a few seconds each. In many shows, however, we don’t always have a few seconds for this, a few seconds for that and especially not any time for the other - while really doing our job with an audience. So, a really useful feature it is then, that the DN-HD2500 stores all the above Cue points, Hotstart points, seamless loop points, together with BPM, Pitch Setting and Range, Key adjust (formerly Master Tempo) on/off information.

The next time you select a track to play, the DN-HD2500 will ask you whether you’d like to load in the memo points data which you saved previously for that track – if you choose “yes”, all your previously perfect settings are loaded in, and set up astounding quickly for you. Saves setting the same cue points etc manually.

All this data is stored by the DN-HD2500...but...WHERE is it stored? The answer to this demonstrates another superb, well thought out feature... – the DN-HD2500 stores a tracks Memo points on the SAME device as the track itself.

...So if you’ve been working out a set on your 2500 at home, and the venue that you’re working in has a 2500 there too (you know that Denon have an amazingly huge slice of the 19inch dual rack player market ) you can simply take along your Pendrive/Jump drive of 100 tracks (or USB hard drive with 50,000 tracks on it for that matter), safe in the knowledge that you’ve got not only your music, but also all your memo points relating to those tracks right there on the same device with you.

As we approach the end of what I hope has been a really useful and more in-depth review of the DN-HD2500, it’s worth noting that the unit used for the review was powered up on some occasions for around 3 days continuously, running playlists, searching for files, cueing within files, setting memo points etc – and all the while, no discernable heat could be felt from the front, back, top or side panels of the unit. Impressed?

Update Update, read all ‘bout it.
As with so many items nowadays, from car engines to DVD players, all the hard-wired mechanical parts inside only do a certain percentage of the task. It’s a computer program stored within the device which does all the clever stuff.

As on all of their most recent products, Denons DN-HD2500 has user upgradable firmware (the computer program). This means that should it be decided in a few months time that some features should behave slightly differently, or that some of the other programming would benefit from small enhancements, you can simply download the new version from the Denon website, and load it painlessly into the 2500 via USB (from your PC or via a Pendrive).

Whilst some other manufacturers cut costs by putting their firmware on their units internal harddrive – Denon have gone with their tried and tested method of storing the firmware on a dedicated hardware chip inside the 2500 – not on the harddrive. This has the huge benefit of enabling the 2500 to still know exactly how to let you carry on your show from your externally connected USB devices, optional 4000/45000 CD-drawers etc, even in the event of the internal harddrive getting beer’d by some jolly wally.

If the internal drive failed on a make/model where their firmware is stored entirely on the harddrive, then...plunk! that’s it for the night, you’d be dashing out to your vehicle for that pair of personal CD players or your pocket mp3 player, just to keep some music going for the rest of a long night. On the DN-HD2500 you could run the unit with its internal harddrive removed and still be in perfect control of all the externally connected USB storage devices, and the optional CD-Drawers too.


Conclusion
Evolution has finally bathed the humble Disc Jockey in its glow.

Built like a tank, intuitive to use and a screen which is surprisingly easy to read without its size stealing space from the well laid out controls, a great range of features which will aid both the main musical parts of the night, without forgetting the DJs needs for a very versatile and easy to control solution for the provision for background music.

Those who up until now had default to a domestic Laptop or PC to control a harddrive, and those contemplating harddrives now that Windows doesn’t have to be on-stage with them, can now lay their hands on a reliable, robust, cool-running, alternative that’s been 100% designed for the job – it could make a serious dent in Asprins profits.

The benefits of having specific hardware, software and firmware all being designed explicitly to work as a single “out-of-the-box” solution, rather than just plug’n’pray are now here.

“Katie...How would you like a laptop in your bedroom? It can do Solitaire...”

I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my Denon unit.

FANTASTIC REVIEW!!!!. Thank you :)

I can't wait for mine! - Which will be arriveing very soon...

Wow what a read!
Great Job Gary!

Anyone know anything about the new Denon HD2500?

Great review Gary. Mine's still on back order!!

Great stuff Gary....Trouble is.. you make it sound so good I want to buy two now

Jim

I was really tempted to get one of these untill I found out that it would not work with a apple mac or an ipod that was run through an apple mac. So as I refuse to own a PC I can't have one

nothing stoping you using a MAC and IPOD to get tunes over to the HD2500...

ok the denon software dont run on a mac but the IPOD will work and you can always put a USB disc on the mac load your tunes over to it and then plug it into the HD2500...

According to the DJMagazine review an Ipod that runs from a mac will not work when plugged into a denon but a Ipod running from a PC will work. Apparently mac formatted ipods do just not appear. Ipod playlists are also not supported.

The external disc (as mentioned by Marc) simply needs to be formated as FAT or FAT32. and then will be seen by the DN-HD2500.

Since playlists can be created extremely quickly using the Denon DJ Manager music software (should run via BootCamp on a Mac), you neednt exclude yourself from ownership on that basis.

Think I will wait to see if someone brings out something that runs on a mac normally with out the need for external drives etc. Hopefully pioneer hehe

Excellent review thanks Gary - far too much to take in in one sitting though!

This unit sounds amazing. However, I am worried that there is so much in it that I will need training before I could use even a quarter of its abilities. Are you aware of any educational vids or online demo's in the pipeline?

Whilst we're on the subject, I'm looking at getting this unit flight cased complete with a 4500 drawer unit and an X900 mixer. Guilford Sound and Light have been recommended. Anyone aware of any deals or other suppliers?

I wouldn't worry about training - this unit is probably Denons most intuitive unit yet. Most people who have walked up to the 2500 at SEDA and at SoundExpo etc. have got into searching for tracks, playing them, adjusting settings etc without tuition within minutes.

...anyway, you know that DJU won't be short of DN-DH2500 usage advice, if required.

Enjoy your next sitting with the review.

Great review.

That "next track" feature alone almost makes it worth buying ....the amount of times I cue a track only to change my mind with 30 seconds to go

however after just changing all of my flightcasing around I find myself ......... 1U short of space for a Denon.

Hmmmm I feel a joke coming on their

There's a partial demo video (pt1) here

Warning it takes nearly as long to watch as the review takes to read

The only major difference between a modern MAC and PC (apart from the Price tag) is the OS... apple have made and aproved Bootcamp so there is no reason why you cant as gary says, use the apple with the HD2500 in the same way the rest of us will be using it on a PC....

No need to wait for other players to come onto the market... buy the time pioneer get round to doing this there wil be a HD8500 Mk6 or somthing from denon...

Great Review Gary your dedication is astounding to be honest. well done mate.

WANT ONE!!

Are you able to save the dump points like you would be able to do with a cue point?

Sorry No.
The Dump feature is a LIVE action on your part (on>off)

Something that could be upgraded in future software maybe?

Possibly, although most memo points store only one set of numbers, whereas the dump info would logically need two.

EG: normal cue point would be memo'd as something like 00m:01s:73f (minutes, seconds and frames)

Dump would need a start point eg 00?:01s:73f, and then either a end cue point , or a duration, for when the dump effect was switched off by the user.

Would certainly be useful, I often forget to dump out the 4 letter word stsrting with s and rhyming with grit, in Greased lightning....until its too late.

I never knew there was one in that tune..... I switch off when im playing music like that and never noticed, not sure the public noticed it...

Greased Lightning is full of obscene lyrics but not many people notice.

Have just Unboxed my HD2500, the next few weeks are going to be interesting

Aren't there 2 versions with & without the

Great review.

Still won't be getting one but it looks fantastic.

Said it a little while back but the 'Next File' function must be the best part of the unit. Excellent.

Also, in demo video - Raze - 'Break 4 Love' is a tune!

Looks like Thomann have stock for £678.15 inc vat and are giving a three year warranty. Has anybody tried to price match their price and warranty in the uk yet?.

Denon DN-HD2500 for £678.15

I've mentioned I still use CD's and vinyl and will not get one of these but what about the whole licencing issue with these units and mp3 files?

Still a grey area with PRS/SG6 et al but what if any future licences are too expensive/restrictive etc?

So, you'll get one when the licensing is sorted out huh?

I've been sent some info about the MCPS license in the last couple of weeks. I'll post that on a separate thread on Monday/Tuesday...I've just gotta check the publication (or not) details.

Did a gig with mine tonight.

Wahey!

Nope! But it is a very nice unit though!

I am pretty sure this will win some kind of award.

Sounds an excellent bit of kit, but I'm sticking to my cd's for now.

I'm wondering if it makes any difference to the speed of search, if tracks are stored in "Artist" folders within the main "Music" folder on the HDD or is it better to just have them in one big "Music" folder?

In fact, it already has:







On the DN-HD2500 folders are totally done away with by tags, databased search system, the playlists and (fun!) playlist categories. As the desired music file is selected via the 2500's database rather than it scouring the hard drive afresh per track, all search results will appear "instantly" regardless of their location within a folder hierarchy.

The DN-HD2500 will support folder structures of up to 5000 folders in upto 9 levels on each device (eg: Per external hard disk drive).

As an example, if you had a folder on your home PC called "Compilation CDs", and within that folder you had a folder called "Released in 2007", and within that you had folders for each CD title eg: "Now thats what I call music 66", and within that you had two folders - one called "Disc 1" and one called "Disc 2", that would be 4 levels (not 5, as both "Disc 1" and "Disc 2" are on the same level)

On your home PC, you can keep your music files stored in more or less any file structure.

Does anyone have any further info on this as it is still a very valid point.....

Yes...sorry, I've got some more up to date details and i've checked the disclosure details now and will post them on a new thread later tonight.

Gary

Absolutely amazing, and the product looks quite good as well. My worry was about playlists and background music, as the laptop is great for set and leave, particularly if the blonde with the big wotsits needs a more hands-on approach.

How does this compare with the D squared? From your review not very well.

Do you think it's worth buying the cd players? Personally I think a small portable cd player for the rare occassions you need one for about £30 is more cost effective.

Mine has a problem crashing when 2 or more flash drives are attached (although not with a HDD & a flash drive) any ideas?

Playlists are great on the DN-HD2500, upto 99 tracks per playlist and not only can you set a crossfade from one track on a playlist into the next, you can also set crossfades to go between two different playlists...eg: A playlist of background music for 30 year olds on the left side, and a playlist of background music for 50 years olds on the other deck...set it and forget it, it'll crossfade a track from each playlist alternately.




As well as not looking like a cashpoint machine:lol:, the Denon has more really useful features for mobile DJs and install usage than the Numark or Cortex units. The addition of the internal hard drive on the Denon is one of those benefits.



Yes, I will be. The 4500 drawer units will perform exactly like DJ CD decks should perform, including actuate bi-directional cueing and frame by frame accuracy, loops etc.



It's the hub, I suspect. What make/model of hub are you using?

The one that came with it (Denon's own)

That's an unpowered hub. good for connecting several powered usb devices and one keyboard. memory sticks/pen drives are un-powered.

Try a powered hub (one with its own 220/240v powersupply). I've got a 7port powered belkin hub (thats te 5 ports for the Denon DN-HD2500 to run four ext hard drives + one keyboard, plus two spare ports if one of the other 5 ports goes duffer). I've used that hub with 4 pen drives and the 2500 has worked fine with all of them, simultaneously.

That's probably it then. In all hnesty I can't see myself using anymore than the 500 GB HDD & 1 flash drive at any one time. Any issues with unpluging a flash & plugging another in mid gig while the HDD is being playd from?

None encountered thus far. Obviously if you've got several devices plugged in via a powered hub, then unplug hub from the 2500...that wouldn't be good.

Hey, just think, you could have all your christmas tunes on a pendrive, and only plug the pendrive into the hub for Nov/Dec...10 months of bliss.

I was talking about unplugging fom the hub, not unplugging the hub itself.

I'm well aware of how increasingly cheap HDD's are (£85 now gets you a 400Gb ext drive from PCWorld). And that Denon have no plans to add support for other file formats outside of WAV/MP3.

Not wishing to sound subversive but - all the same, can I please just register my interest in the unit subject to the hopeful future addition of FLAC support? DENON are you still listening?

Great review Gary must have taken ages to resurch and write up... Nice style..

My only two down points that you mentioned are

“Crossfade Time”: Choose the length of time you’d like the 2500 take over crossfades between one track and the next, when you’ve chosen the crossfade option. Eg: For smoothly blended, gap free, background music.

“Crossfade Level:” Choose the dB level at which the incoming track starts playing, when crossfading takes place. The track increases to “normal” level during the crossfade time (set above).

I take it they are timed crossfade points ie 5 seconds before the end of the file and not specific to each individual song such as a fade out or an instant end...

This is one feature that made me purchase otsdj as it treats each song individually I hate to hear a sond with an end fade 3 seconds before that end I feel it is most un proffesional...

My other point is the slating of Microsoft and then later in reply to a post you mention its relient on fat 32 formating which is a microsoft invention I believe...

Also I have used PC software for over 15 years and can honestly say I have never had a crash or a laptop burn up on me... The only problem I have had and was just two weeks ago was I dropped my HD from a great hight and its broken but I had a back up and I am sure the Denon unit would have been damaged just as bad..

Lastly all the guys who have kncoked PC DJing in the past as not being a real DJ such as the vinal and CD jocks this surely the same but with a different operating system and interface involved....

That said This unit sounds the bees knees.. And yes I would like one..

Fickle or what lol


Nik

So because an item he bought (DN-HD2500) uses Fat as its file system he's not allowed to slate micro$oft ?

Nope, sorry, no one is beyond criticism.

And you've never had a crash in 15 years. Going back 15 years takes us back to the days of windoze 3.1. You must be the only person in the history of man to run that without it crashing lol.

Any one is aloud to slate who or what they like.. well other than liabel of cause.. I guess when it comes down to what we use with all the offerings available there are going to conflicts of interest... Just as stated that HDC systems including the dennon offering is not suited to me... Now I am sure it is suited to many people... But not to me....


I can honestly say that I have never had a PC crash on me while DJing... How ever I have had loads crash on me other times... AAAHH Dos and windows 3.1 those were the days...

Nik

youve done it now, murphys law says that once you clame in public that your system has been 100% relyable and fault free it will now go totaly wrong just when you need it most....

DOH!!!!! you are so right.... Ok its crashed loads of times infact atleast 20 times a gig with out fail lol

Nik