There’s a pretty deep video just finishing production in the x1800 currently.
My own thoughts on the x1800 are that, despite me using the fantastic x1700 mixer (which I found to be one of the best mixers ever!) for several years, the x1800 tops that!
Some might say that its difficult to get excited over a mixer, especially compared to the multi-core SC5000 Prime deck, (which is an awesome player), after all, a mixer “just” blends signals together, right? However, the sound output is beyond great, and for me, the number of user preset options on the x1800 and it’s feature set expansion when it’s connected to SC5000, and its digital daisy chain for linking two x1800s together to make an 8 channel mixer, make this more than any mixer for me.
What I really like is the adjustable crossover frequencies for the EQ.
Every mixer should have that.
But there’s also a missed opportunity.
There doesn’t seem to be a way to swap the line faders for rotary faders.
Pioneers faceplate design would allow for that (separate plate for the faders), they just don’t provide a kit for their recent mixers.
That was offered back in the days of rotary popularity, on the Denon X500 and X900 mixers, where users could buy 1,2,3 or 4 rotary faders for user installation and the “Demand” (cough cough) was pretty much non-existent.
What seems to have taken over, in realistic and practical terms, rather than in people’s perceptions, the proportional (stepless/switchless) channel fader curve, which allows users to fine tune how the signal grows across the length of the fader. A middle setting, gives a linear fader the same curve as a rotary.
I’m sure that, if there was more than enough demand on a separate thread for rotary faders, it would at least be considered for a future mixer. In the meantime, again depending on reaction, perhaps a user preference could be added to the x1800 where the user could choose to have the mixer re-map the linear fader to (say) “Treble” and have the Treble rotary become the channel fader…
Back when Denon and the other manufacturer offered those kits, there wasn’t a huge demand.
But I think the market has changed.
Maybe keep this in mind for the X1900
The option to use one of the EQ pots could be a workaround.
Allen & Heath offer something similar with their DB4.
I’m sure our Product Team are keeping an eye on this thread - good call Kev… made me recall the DJ Booth ‘The Box’ at Ministry of Sound in the late 90’s. It’s quite a different DJ experience working with rotaries for sure. What I can tell you though, is that when you guys get your hands on the X1800 and see and hear what is is capable of, especially when networked ‘to’ the 5000’s, it will elevate itself in importance as a true ‘centrepiece’ of the Prime Series. The forthcoming ‘X1800 Feature Presentation’ video (due late May) will give you guys a much better understanding and I reckon, will spark your imagination and creativity (disclaimer: and that’s me talking as a DJ, not a Brand Manager!, lol)
On-topic: I never saw the charm of rotary mixers to be frank. Must be me, but I always could move to faders (in opposite directions) with one hand, never managed that with rotary knobs though .
In the old … OLD … days it was rotary because nobody had invented faders yet. My Numark iDJ Pro had two rotary channel knobs instead of faders (available space thing) and I never quite warmed up to that part of an otherwise nice iPad controller.
Select High Cross Over. Select a frequency that you like.
I don’t own the mixer so I don’t have all applicable frequencies at hand.
I personally would go for something between 3khz and 4khz.
Then select Low Cross Over and proceed as above.
I would go for something between 150hz and 250hz.
Those frequencies work well with my mixing style and favorite genre (electronic music).
Hi! I was playing around with eq settings. I have set low to 180 and high to 4000. The sound is much better now! (High default is 2200 , way to low… i dont understand denon why this is default
I have 2x qsc kw153 , 2x qsc kw181, and 2x qsc k12
Vincent, you do know EQ crossover points and their values don’t have anything to do with PA crossovers and that they don’t affect the sound if the EQ’s on the mixer are at 12 o’clock?