Hi there! I just got a hold on a SC6000 for a while and observed that the volume using the digital out in my DJM-900 NXS2 is way lower than the one of my XDJ-1000 MK2 when ABing the same track. I need to trim the channel up almost two full increments to match the volume, and even then it doesn’t sound as punchy / clear (not by a lot, but it’s slightly noticeable). I’ve tried different cables and different channels, to no avail. The sound quality is perfectly fine, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not quite as there as the XDJs and it seems weird given the nature of a digital signal. Is this difference normal? Thanks!
@Golitan11, I’m glad you created this thread as I have recently purchased an SC6000-M to go alongside my two turntables that are running Traktor.
The sound quality and the overall volume from Traktor 3 is way higher. I believe Traktor made an update some time ago to address the problem. Also, why hasn’t EngineDJ got an ‘Autogain’ function? For users of the Media Players, we will be routing to an external mixer where we can adjust the gain but the levels I have to set in comparison to CDJs & Traktor means that some improvements can be made inside EngineOS.
How do we raise this as a feature request?
I cant comment on those 2 devices but I can compare a device ive recently changed. I swapped out a Rane SL3 for a Reloop Flux and I now have to gain my tracks about 20% higher than I was with the SL3, same tracks, same output on Serato.
It’s either my new laptop or the card itself… different components.
In reality, does it matter? thats what trim is for, sometimes I have to ramp hell out of it with my Vinyl, other times it’ll play the same level as my digital.
All part of the fun of DJing, perfecting your levels.
Of course! I only found it weird that there was such a massive difference using the digital output, given the digital conversion is performed by my mixer. I would have expected such differences only going through the line outputs of the SC6000 (after its DAC), but nope.
I dont know enough about it to say for certain what it might be. Ive given up trying to work out what goes on with DJ gear.
I was resident in a bar for years and to my ear, my DDJ-SX2 sounded better on their system than the CDJ-2000/DJM-900 setup they had… im sure a load of sound nerds will chime in and tell me im talking nonsense, but I can only offer what my thoughts were, the SX2 was much more balanced in my opinion, and I didnt have to push the master anywhere near as far.
Of course it matters, if Denon want to enhance these products and get them inline with “standard” equipment then getting these players to sound their absolute best definitely matters.
Any ideas on how to raise a feature request?
Why are you defining Pioneer’s ‘louder’ as being ‘better’? The two things aren’t connected.
Given Pioneer’s lousy reputation for sound quality, I wouldn’t be using them as a benchmark for what anything is supposed to sound like.
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Exactly. Different sources from different manufacturers can and will give different output characteristics. This is exactly what gain controls on mixer channels are for.
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I’ll be interested to hear what a few of the regulars here who have SC’s have to say about it, I see plenty using them with other brand mixers too.
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I’ll take that as a no on the feature request then lol
@DenonDJ I just want the SC6000-M to sound punchier and louder. Thanks. 
Go to the feature requests section of the forum and follow the guide.
Personally, I use SC6000Ms with a Pioneer DJM-2000 mixer and I’ve set myself the principle of not exceeding 0 Db on the meters of each mixer channel to maintain a certain headroom and avoid any sound saturation. In the worst case, I don’t go beyond the first orange LED, which sometimes lights up.
With these settings my trim pots are most of the time set at around 11 o’clock on most of the current tracks that have a fairly loud mastering. On less compressed tracks in terms of mastering like funk or 80’s tracks I sometimes have to increase the trim to around 12 o’clock but never more. I had some CDJ 2000 nevus before with this same table and I didn’t notice any noticeable changes in the trim settings.
I think it really depends on the quality of the track mastering.
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The Prime players have a more sophisticated keylock than the CDJs, but partially as a byproduct we get phase distortion that can reduce or boost the amplitude of certain sounds. Between that and Prime’s efficient, aggressive, real-time sample rate conversion that’s tied to not only unusually-wide (for a digital player separate) format compatibility but the pitch fader speed changing, by request a larger digital domain pad was eventually added to the firmware. This reduces the amount of even-more-sonically-destructive dynamics limiting automatically going on that was there to prevent not only overt hard clipping but inter-sample peaks into the digital brick wall.
Personally, I think some of the Prime playback digital audio processing is too aggressive when it doesn’t need to be and could also just be improved generally. It’d also be nice to have more customization of something like the sample rate conversion stuff, but having, say, a -6dB pad (or whatever it is now) is way preferable to having automatic limiting going on all the time.
If you want reference digital sound quality, though, there’s no denying that old CDJs with keylock off is as good as you can get over SPDIF. Ditto some of the old versions of VDJ and even very old versions of 2 channel Traktor.
If you care about sound quality on Prime, you might be interested in these feature requests:
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