DJ Vintage

What we didn’t even mention up til now, is that studio/DJ monitors have another quality that make them a bit less suited for the task of listening to while practicing DJ-ing and that is that they tire your hearing more. Hifi and PA speakers are produced and tuned to make them sound comfortable, so you are able to listen to them for long periods of time.

Studio speakers don’t have that luxury, their uncolored sound tend to leave your hearing more tired after a while.

Yet another thing is that (combined with the tiring bit) monitors aren’t really produced to go really loud. They can, but it’s not what they are tuned for. Most engineers I know will listen somewhere around the 80dB mark, which is far from loud. Sometimes when you are practicing you really want to get into the mood and turn your speakers up a bit. That is not where monitors shine.

Obviously ALWAYS take care of your ears. Protect them properly.

On-topic: Where the SB(2) has deck change buttons, the RB does not. This is not to say you can maybe do something in software, but that would require touchscreen or mouse action every time you want to change decks, so effectively not usable imho.

Near-topic: Even if you have the SB2 and you CAN switch decks, it means that every (mixer/deck) control you move, you will have to manually move back to where it was when switching back to the previous deck. Especially for the mixer part that is a pain I think. So I would never advise (regularly) using 4-decks on a 2-channel controller.

Hi and welcome to the forums. Enjoy your time here. You will have to teach yourself, but we can help with any questions you might have :-).

For the best training to start with, have a look at How To Digital DJ Fast.

It’s called beat matching and the How To Digital DJ Fast course is a great way to get started on the right track.

First question is, why would you want to go with a set of passive speakers in this day and age?

Do you currently have a setup with amp/passive speakers with some extra amp power to spare (like enough to power the speakers to the max and have some left)?

Contrary to popular belief having an amp that is under powered is more dangerous for your speakers than a (slightly) overpowered amp.

If you don’t, you might want to consider switching to active speakers for the new ones.

Also, if you plan to use the new speakers in conjunction with your current setup, I would recommend getting the same speakers you already have. All speakers sound different and it doesn’t make sense to have two different brands. You can of course bring one of your own speakers to a store and A/B it with other speakers to see which match your current setup the best.

There isn’t really such a thing as better or worse as the choice is highly personal. What you can compare is the amount/quality of features for example. Things like track management are also different, in DJay Pro heavily relying on iTunes for example. With DJay Pro being a pretty recent addition to the DJ Software menu, it is understandable that it is a bit behind old hands like Traktor and Serato. As Terry_42 said they are catching up quickly though.

The Dave’s are typical first generation units. Their new Curve series are a lot better already. And the new DSPs can handle the frequency hole better (there would sometimes be a dip between the low end speaker and the tops). And many other brands now produce them, most likely meaning that sound coloring will depend on brand and model.

Yep near fields are more forgiving, especially if they are front-ported (i.e. bass reflex opening facing the listener, not the back of the speaker).

For a room your size 5″ will work, if you like a bit more solid low end I’d go with 6″. 8″ is nearing overkill for near field, imho. If you go for 5″ consider adding a (typically 10″) sub, but make sure you match them.

One form of PA that MIGHT satisfy both your needs are the sub/two top packages that are around. The better ones now featuring mini-array kind of tops and smallish subs. Highly compact, take up little space in transport and setting up, suitable for small parties (say up to 75, maybe 100 people). They sound good and have volume belying their physical size. The grandfathers of this trend are the LD Systems Dave and the HK Audio Lucas Nano, but almost every serious manufacturer now sports one or more models, from low end Behringer thru to RCF.

If you choose these, you don’t have to be too picky about placement (definitely not near field setup), as long as the distance to your ears is not too big you should be fine. When you have a gig, pack’m up and have a good small footprint PA.

Just my three cents as usual.