Improvents tips, new Hardware, players from Denon this year?

General Area
1

Does anyone know if Denon will launch new hardware in the near future ?

I am a DJ and electronics engineer to that have a small workhop for servicing Dj Hardware and professional audio / lights gear.

After two years of usage of Denon Gear Dj Hardware and after experience to service this units, here is some tips for improvements that we like to see in the future Denon Dj Gear.

SC6000 players are great but needs some improvement:

For SC6000 normal Jog version, there is a lot of room for improvement, I will pick some things that need to improve:

  1. The Jog Wheel feeling needs to be improved along with the feeling adjusting sistem.

  2. The Jog display needs to be improved to show BPM and other crucial info like the new Rane four/ performer.

  3. The CPU and memory needs to be improoved for thightier response in Engine stand alone software.

  4. The feeling of CUE/Play buttons needs to be improoved.

  5. There is a plenty of room to improve the main screen resolution / colors / touch response.

  6. Needs to update the USB ports to USB C standard.

  7. Posibility to switch the sources between controller mode to stand alone mode in realtime without need to restart the player, like Pioneer CDJ3000 or XDJ XZ / AZ sistems.

  8. Dedicated stems buttons.

  9. Modular CUE / Play PCB for ease change of the micro switches like Pioneer players design.

If you have other ideeas for improvements, please ad it.

SC6000M with motorized platers improvents:

  1. All improvents described on top for SC6000 normal version.

  2. Improve the motor / plater sistem, improve to something similar to RANE Performer new controller with display in middle.

  3. Improve motor smoothness to solve the warble / distorsion issue in Serato with motorized platter on and Pitch in Time ON. This issue ocurrs when you use the players with Serato an motor ON in a enviroment with a lot of subbass in the Dj Booth.

  4. Improve motor electronics / controller to solve the SC6000M older version failures.

X850 Improvments:

  1. Improve the faders quality, on present X1850 the faders quality is very low and have a very short life, In 2 years of usage I have changed the faders two times.

  2. Improve the displays reliability, they often fail after 1 year of usage, I have changed the displays two time in two years of usage.

  3. Improve CUE buttons quality, they often breaks and loose from their position, I have changed this CUE caps three time in 2 years of usage.

  4. Separate faders plate to acces faders from the top of the mixer for ease reaplacement, like the Pioneer Dj mixers.

If you have more ideas, plase share.

What do you think about this improvents that I have described ?

Thank you !

2

In what way ?

3

I think he’s referring to the precision, although for me it’s already pretty good when the jog is set to the lowest sensitivity level

4

After the latest update, the player it is a bit laggy when you need to perform fast changes in mix.

5

These are corporate secrets. We will only know when there is a formal announcement.

I like your suggestions and hope many of them make their way into new products. I love my SC6000’s and hope everyday for a successor.

6

Most likely you still need to let your music database on each drive upgrade to the latest version. If anything the speed has increased with recent updates

7

Nice that you took the advice and went from Facebook here. We can have more detailed and constructive discussions here.

So let’s break it down a bit:

SC6000:

What feeling exactly? Sensoric (touching the jog wheel?) or jog rotation resistance adjustment, or jog wheel touch reaction sensitivity? Can you be more specific?

That was already called out and confirmed as not possible in current hardware.

I would say, that the data base needs still to be optimised, player is capable of way more than you think. Speed of reactions and still running additional stuff in the background, and the player does not slow down a bit - hardware is solid, software needs refinement.

Again, what feeling? For many people this is totally different - describe it in more details.

totally agree - screen can be improved, the layout and design can be better.

Not necessarily. Industry standard is USB A currently. And I am talking about real industry, not dj market. Why? Because it is the lest prone to damage usb type so far.

Maybe next player - current ones can’t do it.

Not something I would die for, but will be welcome on next decks.

This is a very valid and serious request - I am with you on this all day long.

SC6000M

Not all is possible with rotating platter as it is with static one - keep that in mind.

Motor in Rane performer is the same as in the SC5000/6000. Difference is on the axle only and how the platter is build. Motor is the same. Display addition has nothing to do with the motor.

That is a request to both, Denon and Serato. Denon better readout of the serato playback position and serato to provide the player with more precise data to spin the platter.

Can you elaborate? What failures?

X1850:

Absolutely YES. This needs to be improved, period. Also add the option to easily swap faders without soldering - fix on spot.

That one is a bit of a gamble - one display is perfect since 6 years, other is bad after 1 year. There is certainly room for improvement - component quality.

Button smasher? I never had this issue on any dj mixer, ever, including old numark and reloop mixers…

As wrote before - I am on this with you.

To summarise - these are not new requests - many users over the course of last 5 years requested the same things and found the same issues. Some of them are addressed, some of them can’t be done in current hardware. Denon dj is listening to the users, but, there is always business strategy, money making and already set up priorities. So don’t hold your breath, it will not happen in 2 minutes.

For the very end:

only Denon employees know, and I bet only a selected few, that are involved in makeing new gear.

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8

I hope Denon adds an induction coffee warmer plate into the screen on the next device, don’t tell me it can’t be done.

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9

I’ve bought a Technics myself:

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:joy: Okay, back on-topic..

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10

Why post this when you said it yourself, it’s a shitty batch of OLED screens from the manufacturer:

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11

Mostly good suggestions, though I would say the USB C should be a second port on the front alongside the current USB A port there, maybe between the SD card and USB A.

They should also switch to true 14-bit pitch faders.

12

I am refering to Jog resistance adjustment, it is very imprecise, the touch reaction and rotational sensors are good.

I already specified in the post, these are tips to Improve the next generation of players.

I have optimised data several and several times, result is the same. I have back engineered debugged the kernel, and it looks like the sistem RAM is insuficient, sistem often tries to free up some ram to make room for other user input requests.

There are situations when you are conected to serato and accidentally you move the USB type B conector from the player, and it’s disconects, tested with brand new players, brand new original cables, premium quality cables, result is the same, the USB B 3.0 connector from the player need update, USB C is less susceptible to this issue.

Yes, I was refering to the next gen of media players.

Yes, not necessarily mandatory, but will nice to have it in the future.

Motor in the SC6000M has several reliability issues, needs to be updated. Issues like failed buck converter, I have a separate topic here how this fail and how to repair it. Issues with not consistent and stable motor speed. Issues with the lube that becomes hardened and destroy the motor axial bearings that gets lose and the platter begins to have excesive play.

Again, this is a hardware issue most likely, the resolution of the platter is very high, the rotational readings is done by a optical sensor picking up a rotational thin transparent plastic foil printed with thin lines. This plastic vibrates very easy on external factors such as low frequencies reproduced by subwoofers and sends back to MCU imprecise readings, from this fenomen the distorsion / warble apears. I have sped much time to back engineer and debug this issue. When you use this type of motorized platters with Serato and pitch’n time active, this becomes very audible because of precision of Serato that aquire that platter movement readings. This warble also apear in stand alone mode, but a very less audible than you use with Serato, if you play with motor on in a loud environment with subwoofers. This issue is solved in Virtual Dj with a function called “motor smoothnes” but with the cost of imprecise pitch bendind using motorised platter. So it is a hardware issue that needs redesign of the motor rotational sensors pick up.

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I have already elaborate that above, and I have a separate topic about how this motor buck converter fails, player stuck in motor update mode and how to repair this hardware design flaw.

13

Very interesting topic here

I notice a clear difference in the responsiveness/sensitivity of the motorized platter between use in Engine OS and use with Virtual DJ.

With Virtual DJ, I find the motor to be much more imprecise, resulting in exaggerated sensitivity when bending forward and a sort of lack of responsiveness when bending backward.

Could this be due to this “motor smoothness” software correction? If so, how can I disable this software correction in Virtual DJ to achieve responsiveness similar to that of Engine OS?

14

Now we know something precise. :+1:t2:

Nevertheless, it was already requested and confirmed as not possible yet.

This is interesting part. Did you re-write the data base coding, and player firmware on how it handles that data base? I like to know more on this topic.

USB C is more susceptible to this issue, than you think. Seems like you were the unlucky one with your usb 3 B. The bigger the connector, the more rigid the material can be. So that will make more reliable contact. Better quality / different source of usb 3 B might fix your problem. I am dealing with multiple stage scenarios, where USB 3 B is doing its job for years now.

Can you elaborate on that? Motor is running on 8 pole brushless system driven by PWM, similar to turntables. If you say that buck converter fails, did you measured the voltage that it spots out? Hook up an oscilloscope and check if it’s stable. PWM drive of the motor has big enough capacitors to compensate some fluctuations.

That is not possible. Resonant frequency of that foil is way above mid range. Test it without the plater and the whole assembly. Bass will not vibrate it. The platter is mostly prone to low frequency vibration - but that is exactly same phenomenon as every turn table has on stage. That’s why turntables are sitting on the cushions on stage.

15

Check this thread about the motor failure.

Also check this to proper changer the lube to prevent damage to axial bearings.

  1. Drill a hole in the plastic cover of the motor cover that cover tha foil.
  2. Stick a microcamera with led light on the tip in the hole.
  3. Place a player close to a subwoofer.
  4. Turn the subwoofer ON and play some music
  5. Observe the foil, you will be surprise, but it vibrates the crap of it.
  6. Put the osciloscope probe to the sensor that picks up the rotational position for the platter.
  7. Turn the motor on, and observe the waveform on the osscilocope with the subwoofer ON and subwoofer Off, you will be suprised how altered is the waverform signal with the subfwooer ON.

I have done this debug / test several times to debug the problem. The problem is from the motor asemmbly design, needs to be updated.

I didn’t rewrite / modified anything, just tested behavior with older firmware version and newer, it looks like the sistem runs out of ram very quickly with new version of firmware.

16

I can confirm this; several of my friends have experienced this problem with their SC6000M. I myself had to return one of my players under warranty for this problem, and it had to be replaced with a new one.

This is solely because Denon didn’t put a heat sink on this converter, which tends to overheat, to save money. At least on the first batches; I don’t know if this has been corrected in the later batches.

But it’s a major weakness, because if this component fails, your $1,700 player becomes nothing more than an unusable brick that enters an infinite reboot process, with nothing you can do about it.

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17

Now you are talking about different parts. This has nothing to do with motor power supply.

So you don’t know that for sure. You assume this by observations only.

I know this part of the issues list very well.

So this is not the foul, the whole assembly - that’s what actually happens with every turntable - that’s why turntables on the stage are sitting on cushions and cement plates.

18

Think again!

If this converter overheats, it then causes a series of short circuits, which indeed results in an infinite reboot of the player, probably because it needs to perform some sort of integrity check and/or communication with the motor at startup. This results in the message “updating motor to 04.04” and the player enters an infinite reboot loop and becomes completely unusable.

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19

Given that I have 4 of the 6KM models, i’m curious to know if there is anything preventative i can do, such as gluing on small aluminum heat sinks? :scream:

20

Can you pinpoint the circuit, please?