DJ Controller: Sound Quality - whats the best choice?
Hi,
guess thats an old question, but i couldnt find a thread that answers this already.
Which DJ Controller provides the best sound quality?
Last week I once again experienced that the DJ after me sounded so much better then me. He was using CDJs, i am using NI S4 MK2 and Traktor. (I believe my Traktor settings are okay, headroom 9db and all…)
Is the sound card in a CDJ better?
How about XDJs?
Or the Denon DJ SC5000 Prime?
Or what are Controllers with the best sound?
I thought the S4’s sound card would be no less good than the CDJ, thats what the guy in my store told me. Guess he wasnt right there…
Are you planning to use it on a Funktion One sound system or a £20,000 home hifi? Because otherwise I’d guess it’s more likely your settings and cables/outputs than the audio coming out.
Maybe he was using better audio files?
Maybe he was playing .wavs?
Maybe he wasn’t clipping any of his channels?
Maybe he was using EQs right?
Maybe it just sounded better from where you stood while listening to him compared to where you stood when you were playing?
The S4 Mk2 is good for up to 48kHz/24bit which is a bit better than CD quality(44.1kHz/16bit). In order to fully use this you need make sure your sample rate is set to 48kHz in your traktor preferences. Another setting that I have seen have an affect on sound quality is your latency setting. I had an incident several years ago when a buddy of mine called me up in a panic cause after hooking up to the system he has been playing on for almost a year, the sound sounded super distorted. Come to find out his latency setting got set to be incredibly small and his CPU couldn’t really keep up. If this is the case I always suggest people start with a buffer size of 512 and listen to some music, and then try to lower it a bit and keep experimenting til you have a quality sound with as little latency as possible.
Besides that it all comes down to song file quality, using balanced cables instead of unbalanced ones, cable quality(cables do go bad over time especially not wrapped correctly or taken care of), staying out of the red to prevent clipping, and making sure the house system has decent headroom as well to prevent clipping there as well without hitting any limiters/compressors.
Most older CDJs that I know are capable of playing at 48kHz/24bit so it should match that of your S4 Mk2. The newer NXS2 CDJs and I am pretty sure the newer denon units play at 96kHz/24bit. Only a couple of controllers support that level of digital sound(Roland DJ-808(up to 96kHz/32bit) and Pioneer DDJ-RZX(96kHz/24bit)).
One alternative way of possibly getting that level of sound while using a S4 is to take advantage of Traktors ability to select which sound device to use. In theory you can plug in any audio interface and select it as your audio output for Traktor. You will still need to use internal mixing within traktor but you will be able to select higher sample rates on your sound device. Latency will depend on the sample rate you use and also the type of connection the interface has with your computer(USB2, USB3, Thunderbolt, etc…)
Apart from the low end budget stuff, most modern controllers sound acceptable played through an average club/bar system.
As already said, use high bit rate or wav tracks where possible & stay out of the red, & you’ll be just fine.
I personally think the Denon controllers sound nicer than Pioneers, & the Mixars Primo i’ve brought sounds nicer than my Denon 7000. …but audio quality wise, i’d be happy to play out on any of them.
main point: controller with interface that has specs 44.1khz/16bit can sound better that other’s brand 48kHz/24bit one used with same PA/laptop/cables/media. those specs are almost irrelevant.
The NI Kontrol S4 mk3 sounds way much better then his previous versions.
The NI Kontrol S4 mk3 sounds way much better then his previous versions. More presents and punchier and its the same as the expensive table players. I sound checked it last week on a leopard meyer soundsystem with 900 and 1100 subs added to the system. In one word… WOW!
As someone said above, numbers , cables and sampling rates are basically irrelevant, it depends on source file quality, gain-staging and quality of conversion. Presuming you’re using shop-sourced or properly ripped cds etc at min. 320kbps and not 15 yr-old 128kbps Napster grabs, then the files likely aren’t the issue.
Gain-staging - basically healthy but NOT red-peaking levels starting with your Traktor channels (goes for each file you play), same for the mixer your interface is running into.
Lastly conversion - presuming the other things are in order this one is HUGE. Acceptable is very different from great. ‘Punchy’ is often just marketing speak. Yes the average level of even entry level stuff is way better than a 1995 Soundblaster or whatever but a decent external interface can be noticeably better than built-in/on-board parts providing you choose well.
I’ve had NI interfaces, Audio Kontrol 8 - superb design and build with ‘good enough’ sound but I wanted better. Also had the $100 pocket-size thing which is …sorry but complete junk, both sound and build. Pretty sure you can use an external interface with S4 etc, so depending on your budget you can get a good improvement without having to buy a whole new rig. You just have to look at your needs and budget. I tried RME etc, great stuff but realised I wanted to use bus power for gigs, travel etc so after some listening/research got this https://www.roland.com/global/products/mobile_ua/. It sounds very good indeed, 4 out, no in, bus powered and very small. It has no parts I don’t need so the cost is going entirely on the parts I do need. At home I use a pro class rack mount interface https://mhsecure.com/metric_halo/products/hardware/uln-8.html (part of work) and it sounds ridiculously good but is impractical and waaay too expensive to take to gigs.
Long story short…you get what you pay for and built-in is generally only ‘good enough’ - work out what you can pay and choose well.
The NI forums have several posts about cue volume so I suggest you head over there. The latest update seems to be OK for me but I just play at home, I play loud but not club volumes.
Assuming you’re talking about using a CD or USB drive on the CDJs… Pioneer uses better DSP processing methods than is done by Traktor and better DACs than your controller. However, the DSP stuff is a much larger difference than the difference between the DACs. While in your particular instance the files could have been of different quality and your gain-staging might have been improper (easy to foul up in software, especially with their poor metering and lazy auto-gain), you’d see much of this difference even with identical files and very conservative, manual trimming & metering of gains on both. You would even see much of this difference comparing the CDJs running off CD or a thumb drive vs the CDJs as sound cards and controllers for Traktor.
