Originally Posted by
dsquareddan
Sonically, you will not hear a difference, even on the biggest sound systems at major festivals...
...However, there is one key point to note for why you should ALWAYS spring for digital connection when possible on pioneer gear:
When hooking up gear to DJMs with digital connections (either S/PDIF or USB) it is NOT POSSIBLE to clip the channel gains on the mixer. You can (but you shouldn’t) turn the gains and the EQ’s up 100% on the channels well into the “red” and it still will not be physically clipping (only on the channels, the Master Out & Booth Out is different. More on that in a minute).
I’ve contacted Pioneer reps directly on this to confirm and tested myself.
The reason is because of the 32bit floating point DSP (on NXS2, I think it’s 24bit on first gen 900nxs and djm2000) makes the headroom so huge that it is *pretty much* impossible to clip the gains on a digital signal.
When I set up gear for international artists on tour at major festivals I always use digital inputs, have the Master Attenuation at the lowest setting it will go (-12db on NXS2, -6db on DJM900nxs) and also booth attenuation on nxs2 the same. As well the Peak Limiter turned on in mixer settings.
This means that I can safely not worry if a DJ “redlines” (which happens WAY more than you think with major artists) because I know the signal leaving the mixer will not be distorted no matter how loud the DJ turns it up and I don’t have to play the silly game of explaining to them that if they turn it down, I’ll turn it up on the Front of House mixing console running the show sound system.
It also has the added benefit that if the previous/next DJ uses a Serato box (because they STILL haven’t gotten Serato Club Kit expansion in 2017 ��) or some other analog sound card device, you don’t have to worry about unplugging a live signal cable as only the cdj’s will be digital.
So in summary, always use digital when possible simply because you can drive a mixer louder (which you don’t need to do, but DJs never learn...) without distortion, and it makes changeovers with other pieces of gear into the same mixer a breeze
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