So Denon DJ has improved their already awesome DJ-player, and release the SC5000M of the prime series. M stands for Motorized and means the platter now spins as it did on the old Technics DJ CD-player as well as some older Denon DJ Players from early 2000. Hardware hasn’t changed noticeably, but the firmware seems to have reached a good status since its original release.

From Denon DJs webpage:

Denon DJ brought the world’s first, motor driven active platter to DJ media players back in 2003 with the DNS5000. Continuing its heritage of motorized media players, Denon DJ now introduce the SC5000M. The ‘M’ (for Motorized) is, at its core, an SC5000 Prime DJ media player, already a (DJ Mag) multi-Tech Award winning unit, but now headlined with a 7”, real vinyl and adjustable torque, motorized platter. This die cast aluminum platter features ultra-high resolution MIDI (3600 ticks per rotation) performance accuracy. Added to adjustable vinyl tension for slip/scratch control, this blesses DJs with a true, mechanical spin beneath the fingertips, making their music really feel alive!

The appeal of the SC5000M touches the hearts of DJs at all levels of experience, age and inquisitiveness into the essence of legacy vinyl performance. DJ A-listers, Turntablists and Pro/Industry luminaries have already ‘hands-on’ previewed the M’s platter performance and their response has been unified that the legacy, DJ vinyl experience has truly come home!

Coming back to the firmware. Apparently the readability of Traktor playlists has been implemented, which is huge. The most welcome feature though, in my opinion, is the ability for the player to read and play music off of a Rekordbox library. It allows for this player to be used in a professional setting by people who usually use pioneer products. Might be a little confusing at first, not being used to the system, but it is usually not that problematic. Denon DJ might even win some people over to the Denon DJ camp. Read about it at Denon DJ as well as here and here.

You might ask yourself the question: Which is the best player, a Pioneer DJ CDJ2000 NXS2 or Denon DJ SC5000M Prime?

Well, you have to try them out and find which ever is the best player for you. Personally, I prefer the PioneerDJ players because DenonDJ tend to make certain things cluttered and with features not always so logically activated/used, also the players nowadays lights up like a Christmas tree and it can be too much. But they do have some things I like, i.e. the customisability of the platter display and the master tempo seems to be awesome.

Feature-wise though, I would say they are equally good, just in different ways. There is a reason PioneerDJ is so popular, and much of it is about they having clean and easy to use players, whereas DenonDJ most often has offered the opposite. So it is fair to say we have two giants to choose from, and they aim for different types of people… at least that’s my opinion.

Read my post about the Original player.