so I was having a conversation with my brother regarding mixing with equipment and he comes up with an idea that the equipment (mixers, turntables) improve sound quality. the argument pissed me off because he wouldn’t acknowledge what I was trying to tell him and kept insisting his point.
He says that his idea is supported by the fact that why a person would get a pioneer DVJ-1000 over a numark NDX 800 is because he could rock the crowd with “better sound quality” and by sound quality he meant the crisp range of audible sound from a file. He says that there is something about the equipment that creates that awesome sound quality and that the soundcard is just an interface.
so i told his dumbass that it is the soundcard (NI audio 10 DJ) that improves sound quality supported the fact that there are settings on the card let me set the sampling rate and buffer size of the sound output… so based on that I tell him a person would pick awesome equipment over lesser equipment is because of the features. its obvious that a DVJ-1000 has more features to fuck with the track than the cheaper ones. obviously those do NOT improve sound quality in the sense of audible range but more on manipulation.
my brother is a fucking idiot and just wants to believe what he wants to believe. please help me tell him that equipment is just for features and manipulation and that it is the soundcard and the music files that set the sound quality.
can you guys please shed some light because you guys know what your talking about. and if im wrong then I deserve to be flamed.
Soundcards/mixers/etc don’t improve the sound quality. If you increase the bit rate or whatever in the soundcard settings it will still be tied to the source file quality. So let’s say a good soundcard/mixer doesn’t destroy the sound quality like cheap stuff would.
I am in the understanding that good sound quality comes starts from your sound file. Then is just depends on the gear as to how much it will degrade the quality of that sound file as it travels along the path and finally out the speakers.
Better quality gear = less loss of quality
Why I pay money for focusrite/avalon/hammerfall/apogee AD-DA boxes over edirol/maudio/behringer.
More $$$ and experience on component & circuit design = better sound.
Why I pay money for an A&H Xone over a noname brand DJ mixer with the same features.
Gear does improve/maintain sound quality.
But shit in, shit out. Awesome gear ain’t going to improve a 320kbps MP3 that was up-converted from a youtube rip of an awesome track off pristine vinyl captured by the video camera on some dude’s blackberry.
agreed. hmm that’s what i thought in the first place
hahahaha! I’m so guilty of that.
ok so from my understanding the better the gear the less audio quality is “taken away” not the opposite where the better the gear the more audio quality is added? (sorry if that was confusing) since ultimately its the source file that defines the quality?
The guys above have said it all - better kit all the way through ensures the signal gets degraded less. Some pieces of kit may colour the sound in a pleasant way, however, but that’s kinda subjective and a can of worms you’re trying to stay out of.
You may however troll using "well it doesn’t matter because you have all your gains maxed out anyway,so you’re feeding crap to the PA ".
Pretty much. Actually the weakest link in the whole audio chain defines the quality (of course a bad source will give bad results, in the same way a cheap mixer, crappy speakers/PA or poor gain staging will cripple the audio)
well me and my bro were talking about pioneers as the top of the line brands. but i dont really know much about high end pioneer stuff so i just looked up the most expensive one X) my bad but u know what I mean
I have a Numark M6USB… how much will that degrate my sound?
Exactly. At uni we used to say that your end sound quality is only as good as the weakest link in the signal chain.
@ OP, if your question is about the mixer specifically, then your brother is right in a way, because the audio circuitry of a ‘better’ mixer should be superior. The dynamic range, distortion, and crossfeed between channels will all be better spec’d in a high end pioneer than some behringer piece of crap.
But, you’re right that this is usually not what ‘most’ people are paying for, its the effects, features, etc…
Yeah, you’re kinda both right. I wouldn’t think of it that an audio chain is only degrading things away along the route though. It was only mentioned briefly, but coloring of audio is HUGE with regards to how we subjectively think a piece of equipment sounds. Manufacturers build their names on the way their equipment colors the sound. So there are a couple angles to consider. As mentioned, “garbage in, garbage out” - shitty files and/or a bad piece of gear will be a weak link. When it comes to gear, the elements that make it sound bad or good have everything to do with the quality of circuitry, AD/DA converters, connectors, filter and eq curves, whether its analog or digital, etc. Some people might prefer a certain sound, but it’s extremely subjective. Cards like the Audio X DJ series (and quality cards in general) are designed to reproduce the source fairly accurately, but their frequency response isn’t necessarily flat. AX DJ’s are designed to sound punchy and enhance frequencies that sound good to a dj. My AK1 uses the same converters, but does not sound like an Audio 8.
Don’t forget about summing, where it happens in the chain, and by what equipment. This is where all of your channels are mixed together before hitting the master. Summing intricacies can have a major effect on how people perceive the sound. This is another major reason people might love a certain analog mixer. Not just the sound on a solo channel, but the way things sound when mixed together; the subtle distortions, perceived space between sounds, etc. Some producers swear by expensive outboard summing boxes, rather than mixing entirely within the computer - there’s a growing market for those kinds of units.
why the DVJ and not CDJ? DVJs are for video mixers…
