In-depth (very...) Review Of The Denon Dn-hd2500

[Dukesy 0]

 

I can honestly say that I have never had a PC crash on me while DJing... How ever I have had loads crash on me other times... AAAHH Dos and windows 3.1 those were the days...

 

I used to use home / personal computers and dedicated software for writing music way back in 1988 however compared to todays systems, it was dated!

Used an Amiga during a gig in London 1992 with a then expensive 16-bit sampler and tracker software (Octamed if I remember). Also used the Amiga for Genlock video editing (basic).

The software seemed more stable than the OS as I recall, and the visual gfx demo's doing the rounds were pretty cool - exactly the sort of sophisticated visuals required today to enhance VJing!

 

Mind, too much to carry around then!

 

Those were the days.....

[Steve_Mitchell 0]

Well its on its way down already Click..Got me thinking now................Where is my bank card????

[UKHero 0]

Give it 6 months and you will get it for around £400 Give it 12 months and you will get it for £300

 

It is a shame sometimes how fast new technology comes down in price so fast... Just when do you make the jump to a new bit of kit?

 

Nik

 

[Steve_Mitchell 0]

Just got round to reading all of Gary`s review. Very good Gary thanks. I have highlighted the bits below which IMO the laptop (for DJ-ing) will soon be in our local museums along with dinosaurs. Playing mp3`s via a pc/laptop was/is a great idea but one thinks now, PC/laptop DJ-ing will soon be moving out of the way for the HD 2500, Newmark and the likes. I guess the only advantage of a PC is playing spider or solitaire during the buffet.

 

 

 

DN-HD2500 Professional Media Controller.... - - - From Nought to Music in 14 seconds...

It’s a very worthy mention that should the unit be switched off, by say, a trigger-happy noise limiter device in a village hall, a bumbling old caretaker, or non-tea-totalling roadie (Hic), the DN-HD2500 will be ready to play music for you again within 14 seconds of the power coming back on. This slashes a couple of minutes off of most similarly power-staved laptops or PCs, which wouldn’t normally have finished advertising Microsoft Windows, loading zillions of drivers loading etc, let alone opening of the DJ application and picking a track to play.

 

 

How many of you guys and girls have the opportunity of playing several nights on the trot, in the same venue, with the grace of being able to leave the gear set-up each night? Christmas Dinner dances perhaps? You rush to the venue for 18:30 to put on background music each night, then kick your heels, scribble all over your Sudoku and look longingly at the patrons devouring 600lbs of turkey and pud for the next two hours, until finally, they finish eating at about 9:00, ready for you to start selecting those floor-filling tracks ‘til 12 or 1am...? Sound familiar?

 

Katie...How would you like a laptop in your bedroom? It can do Solitaire...”

 

 

 

 

[Andy Westcott 0]

I've just been reading through this review, and have downloaded the introductory video - all 50-odd megabytes of it!!

 

Oh dear.

 

Oh dear oh dear.

 

Oh dear oh dear oh bloomin' dear.

 

I've been racking my brains for what to get as my main deck, as my original one is getting old and blind, and for the moment can't see any convincing reasons for not choosing one of these.

Similar price to what I was going to pay for a pair of CD decks...

 

I think I'm in love!!

 

Oh, and thanks Gary for taking the (considerable) time to write all that out - I think you've sold me on the idea.

[TonyB 0]

DN-HD2500 Professional Media Controller.... - - - From Nought to Music in 14 seconds...

 

 

Another Dimension

 

 

It’s a very worthy mention that should the unit be switched off, by say, a trigger-happy noise limiter device in a village hall, a bumbling old caretaker, or non-tea-totalling roadie (Hic), the DN-HD2500 will be ready to play music for you again within 14 seconds of the power coming back on. This slashes a couple of minutes off of most similarly power-staved laptops or PCs, which wouldn’t normally have finished advertising Microsoft Windows, loading zillions of drivers loading etc, let alone opening of the DJ application and picking a track to play.

 

 

 

Not quite correct, a laptop has a battery. If the power is cut, the battery takes over so there is no break in usage and it is ready to go as soon as the power is restored - 14 seconds quicker than the HD2500 smile icon

[UKHero 0]

Not quite correct, a laptop has a battery. If the power is cut, the battery takes over so there is no break in usage and it is ready to go as soon as the power is restored - 14 seconds quicker than the HD2500 smile icon

 

:hide: OOOooo your in for it now how dare you knock the perfection that is the HDC 2500 :ouch: LOL

 

 

Nik

 

[EdBray 0]

I've just been reading through this review, and have downloaded the introductory video - all 50-odd megabytes of it!!

 

Oh dear.

 

Oh dear oh dear.

 

Oh dear oh dear oh bloomin' dear.

 

I've been racking my brains for what to get as my main deck, as my original one is getting old and blind, and for the moment can't see any convincing reasons for not choosing one of these.

Similar price to what I was going to pay for a pair of CD decks...

 

I think I'm in love!!

 

Oh, and thanks Gary for taking the (considerable) time to write all that out - I think you've sold me on the idea.

Andy, you can always pop down and have a play with mine :Thumbup:

[TonyB 0]

:hide: OOOooo your in for it now how dare you knock the perfection that is the HDC 2500 :ouch: LOL

Nik

 

:hide: Amazing how brave one can get after a couple of cans of Murphy's but in defence of the HDC 2500, I read a review from someone who had a Numark D2 and a HDC 2500 on a sale or return basis. After using both, he sent the D2 back. One of the main factors was that the sound quality was much better from the HDC 2500 and no tweaking of the EQ could make the D2 sound as good.

 

Hope I've redeemed myself now and can come out of hiding smile icon

[DJ Marky Marc 0]

Not quite correct, a laptop has a battery. If the power is cut, the battery takes over so there is no break in usage and it is ready to go as soon as the power is restored

 

Thats if its a laptop with a good battery..

 

lots of people have custome PC systems...

 

and I know a lot of DJs with cheep laptops that do the job perfects but stay on PSU all the time because the battery is fupped and they dont want to spend £90 on a new one...

 

its good however to see that a lot of people are starting to use UPS on there systems so the disco will continue even if the venues lights go out...

[jeffwall 0]

I read a review from someone who had a Numark D2 and a HDC 2500 on a sale or return basis. After using both, he sent the D2 back. One of the main factors was that the sound quality was much better from the HDC 2500 and no tweaking of the EQ could make the D2 sound as good.

 

 

 

 

Having just bought the D2, cant see this is correct to be honest, whilst the 2 units are very different in gizmo's and the Denon has more features, the sound quality form the Numark is exactly the same as my Denon cd players?

so not sure how this can be the case...............If the Denon Cd players are as good if not better sound quality than the 2500? (same at least)

[Andy Westcott 0]

Quote Eddie:

"Andy, you can always pop down and have a play with mine"

 

Eddie - Me and 'The Boy' are extremely interested, and your offer sounds too good to be missed.

 

Your place, or a gig somewhere perhaps? Up to you, and thanks. :Thumbup:

[Gary 0]

and there's more...

 

Here's "SOME" of what you can look forward to receiving FREE in the forthcoming update - this is whats happening to the Music Manager (MM) software which sits on your PC safely at home.

 

Many great improvements have been made in the next MM & firmware (coming June xx) to reduce the amount of work on your end, thanks to our loyal users input.

 

Unicode support (less imported tags with hollow squares and wierd characters)

 

Duplicate file name support

 

Duplicate Playlist file support by MM (import/export)

 

Pre-warning if (over) 5000 folders are found by MM

 

Latin Character support by display (previously latin characters could junk the filename display)

 

Auto BPM by MM (hurrah! no more having to press the tap tap tap button whilst listening to the tune to input the BPM.)

 

Save error list option by MM, up to 50K (When a file is rejected for whatever reason, you'll now be able to look up a list and see what that reason was).

 

Faster USB speed

 

Many new features added

 

All reported minor issues cured

 

Widened file registration conditions

[RobbieD 0]

Auto BPM by MM (hurrah! no more having to press the tap tap tap button whilst listening to the tune to input the BPM.)

Does this mean it scans the files and calculates the BPM, ten enters it in to the tag?

 

Even on wav files?

 

If so, this is a great addition!

 

[brianmole 0]

Good set of new features there Gary.

 

Is MM ever going to run on http://www.dancemix.co.uk/images/stevejobs.jpg or are MM users going to be tied to http://www.dancemix.co.uk/images/billgates.jpg forever? :dan+ju:

[Andy Westcott 0]

Music manager compatible with Windows 9X?? :hide:

[Gary 0]

Good set of new features there Gary.

 

Is MM ever going to run on http://www.dancemix.co.uk/images/stevejobs.jpg or are MM users going to be tied to http://www.dancemix.co.uk/images/billgates.jpg forever? :dan+ju:

 

 

Music manager compatible with Windows 9X?? :hide:

 

 

Neither of these are in this release, or planned, ttbomk.

 

MM will run (apparently) on a Mac under the Mac "Bootcamp" application.

 

An Ex-lappyDJ was telling me a month or so ago that he got MM to run on his Windows 98 (sp2) but needed to get the ".NET" language/protocol for a Win 98 platform first.

 

Remember also, that the above features are only the add-on features for the Music Manager Software, there's a whole seperate present to un-wrap with regards to the firmware enhancements on the DN-HD2500 itself.

[Corabar Steve 0]

I think I read somewhere that defragging your external HDD can cause problems with the HD2500, can anyone shed any light on this?

[Andy Westcott 0]

I don't know anything about such issues, but it should never be necessary to defrag anyhow.

 

As you load files onto an empty HDD, they pile on in a highly organised way, filling any available space as they go, and being stored on a contiguous string of clusters.

 

Using the HDD for playback won't move them around at all, so makes a defrag pointless, as the drive is already defragged to start with.

 

If there is an issue, I suspect it could be something to do with when a database is created, maybe it not only logs the files, but also the clusters they occupy. Defragging may move some of the files about, rendering the database out of date. I'd have thought simply creating a new one would sort it, if this is the case.

[Gary 0]

I think I read somewhere that defragging your external HDD can cause problems with the HD2500, can anyone shed any light on this?

 

Defragging ANY harddrive which is connected to a USB port is at best tediously slow, and at worst a potential corruption issue. I recall a laptop DJ mentioning that he defragged his USB external harddrive for his laptop a few hours before his NYE and lost the use of the drive that evening and ended up running the night from a load of un-labelled CD-Rs.

 

The DN-HD2500 hard drive doesnt need defragging under normal use.

 

[Dale King 0]

Will the new update address the issue I raised previously about DDMM recognising and playing mp3s only for the HD2500 to say they are corrupt?

[Gary 0]

Will the new update address the issue I raised previously about DDMM recognising and playing mp3s only for the HD2500 to say they are corrupt?

 

Handling of files whose headers have been corrupted by rogue PC-applications is a very key part of this months firmware update for the DN-HD2500. However there's plenty of other enhancements too.

 

[Dale King 0]

Ohhhh Gary - you little tease you ....

[Tonsk 0]

QUOTE(Gary @ Jun 5 2007, 01:09 AM)

Auto BPM by MM (hurrah! no more having to press the tap tap tap button whilst listening to the tune to input the BPM.)

Does this mean it scans the files and calculates the BPM, ten enters it in to the tag?

 

Even on wav files?

 

If so, this is a great addition!

 

Hi Gary

 

You missed this question - Will it BPM wave files as that would be great

 

Regards

 

Tony

[Gary 0]

Does this mean it scans the files and calculates the BPM, ten enters it in to the tag?

 

Even on wav files?

 

If so, this is a great addition!

 

Hi Gary

 

You missed this question - Will it BPM wave files as that would be great

 

Regards

 

Tony

 

Yes, sorry, I missed this question.

 

The new version of music manager which is due this very month will auto-calculate BPMs on both WAV and MP3 files.

 

You can also point Music manager at a whole batch of files, not just individual files, one-at-a-time, and leave it to do its thing. The calculated BPMs are then placed into the BPM field of the IDtag/metatag data.