I’m very curious to see what the XDJ-XZ2 will look like, and if they decide to make it an actual standalone 4 channel that could (kind of, not really) compete with a Prime 4. Also, what the pricetag would look like. I’m guessing €3,000+
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the benefit of “competition” … long may it last
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Competition is good. There are pros and cons to everything though. The slogan for this pioneer release is ‘having’ the industry standard feel.
Is pioneer really the industry standard now or the industry baseline? Things are starting to look blurred in this regard.
Right now the best option for pioneer users who want to stream music is either incorporate some form of a computer or add a denon deck.
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Don’t hold your breath on a XZ2….
What’s up @Wyley1,
I think it’s more that they’re a baseline, meaning that they’re a ‘staple’ in the industry. They came out with products that were stable and became icons in the digital djing world (CDJs, DDJs), but haven’t pushed the technology much further.
This is what made me first give Denon DJ a look again when the MCX8000 was released. I purchased one because I saw the potential in the technology. Since then, I’ve move on to purchase more from the Prime Series because I like how Denon DJ is forward thinking with new tech.
Pioneer on the other hand has only been doing short-sighted refinements to their old equipment and repackaging it as something new by slapping on a new name and price tag. I haven’t seen anything really game changing from them for some time.
A standard is usually something that is very good and that is used to make judgments about the quality of other things. I guess we can give pioneer credit there but is it at a ‘high’ standard now? They have good mixers and they have good all in ones like the xz and rx3 but the cdj line right now is of a standard that almost any dj product can easily rise above.
Here are some things I like about the rx3.
1 Effects for on screen use.
Here’s a discussion I tried to start awhile back Jan 2019. Prime ecosystem and it's potential
2 Pad fx. Pad fx are fun to play with.
Here’s something that can be done on the pads. https://community.enginedj.com/t/key-change-pad-mode/12904 https://community.enginedj.com/t/key-changing-by-pads/13810
Those are the only 2 things that I can think of that pioneer is incrementally adding to their standalone ecosystem. Other than good music filtering everything is just relatively basic. More like a baseline of what it required to dj. Nothing more nothing less, just a standard set of functions.
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It’s better for everyone when the industry has a unified standard, so that DJ’s can walk into a booth anywhere in the world and know what to expect. But, I think that that’s why the pioneer elitism gets so heated sometimes. It isn’t that pioneer equipment is so much better (it isn’t), rather that if you admit it isn’t, you have to learn how to use new gear. Pioneer is a lot like Apple, in that they force you to fully invest into their ecosystem, which intentionally doesn’t play well with others. This ensures customer loyalty, because they make switching brands such a hassle it just turns you off of the idea all together. That’s why they can be so successful while implementing incremental updates at outrageous prices (just like Apple).
Pioneer remains the ‘industry standard’ because of DJ’s complacency and unfortunately, that probably won’t change any time soon…
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Well, that I have to disagree. A good dj can play on any dj equipment, regardless of a brand. If the decks will accept your usb with music, they have all what is needed to beatmatch, You can play. Complaining that You need a brand x or y to play is very ignorant and close minded. Being a good dj is also the ability to adapt to a situation and give it Your best.
I was surprised many times in my life with different gear. For example, I went with a usb and headphones to the club, they told me, they have some players there. There were old cdj’s 800 and a djm1000. But they had also 2 turntables and a laptopt with serato. So I plugged my usb in and played on dvs vinyl. No issue. Night went well, dancefloor was happy, I did my job. Even when I never use serato, and rarely play vinyl. I adapted to the situation and I know many djs can adapt also. Just they need to stop being ignorant and lazy…
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We could debate all day what makes a good DJ, but the fact is that most DJ’s (especially younger ones that started in the digital age) want to play on equipment that they are familiar with and many rely heavily on beatgrids and sync.
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The new generation of djs is less requesting pioneer gear. They are more happy if they can bring their own gear that they know.
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Many of the bar/smaller club owners in the UK supply two XLR cables that run into the system and a nice bank space where some gear used to be. There was even a chain asking the same.
They guy who I used to work for was sick of DJs bringing in their own controllers and balancing it on top the house equipment he ripped it out of all his venues (43 of them) and said “bring your own”.
I actually don’t mind that at all but like @NoiseRiser , I can play on pretty much anything.
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are they requesting Denon?
What are they bringing? Pioneer controllers?
Not only, they bring their own, they ask for it.
Sometimes they bring their own controllers - roland, numark, reloop, hercules (extra movile guy that absolutely nailed it with his set, regardless the size of the gear 
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The ones that I noticed were almost all Pioneer DJ controllers. SX and RX line was pretty much the controllers of choice in the bars and clubs on my travels.
I find that if the club or bar owner was once a DJ then you get good equipment. Any of these clubs that don’t install equipment just hire it in for big names etc. The resident’s almost always use Serato DJ or Virtual DJ so a £5k Pioneer DJ setup is wasted on them to just use as controllers.
The LC6000 line would be perfect here.
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This has been my own observation as well.
I know just a single dj with Denon hardware. A PrimeGo owner (he is a mobile DJ)
The Rane One is getting quite popular in my circle.
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I see mostly pioneer controllers and for karaoke old denon rack mounts.
And there’s me with my Traktor controller lol.
I was taking a break knocking back a few cold ones when I took this so sorry for the quality. You can see 2 laptops on the pioneer and then my Traktor setup 
I see this too. It seems to be the weapon of choice for those kinda DJs.
Pero los usuarios de DENON PRIME 4 seguimos sin poder visualizar ondas cuando trabajamos con serato DJ, ya es hora que denon haga algo, o voy a cambiarme nuevamente a pioneer.
You know two now, cos I’m one as of a couple of months ago… the Prime 2 got huge amounts of attention at a bar last night, people wanting to know how it worked and how it “looks like it should cost far more than 1200 quid”… I don’t think I’ve ever had so many people asking about the gear.
Denon did all they could with marketing. When I do a video search for people performing on the gear I only see the usual suspects like Crossfader, DJ Carlo Atendido, Mojax and Ethan Leo.
Soon I’ll be joining the mix. Coming Jan I’ll be starting to put out a lot of content. I did a lot this year that I got to put on YouTube and my website.
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