The 'sound' of the X1800 - tell me please ;-)

The master outs can get noisy, requiring you to open it up and ground one part of the mixer to another part with a wire to get rid of it. There’s a youtube video on the topic explaining how to do it.

Strange don’t have any noise with my DB4 Made in UK

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Was thinking of picking up the x1800 on saturday. Seems that you guys are happy with it. It is a steal compared to other mixers.

I have the Mackie d.2pro and I do love the sound from it but age is catching up with it. I wonder if Mackie can refurbish it for me?

Yeah, much in the same way that we all get that one email a year about some foreign prince wants to send us a million dollars from his account which is about to be seized in a political takeover / tax excile situation :wastebasket:

The X1800’s sound with its current firmware isn’t going to knock your socks off or anything compared to the Mackie. It’ll either be a bit of a let down if you’re hoping for a step up or you’ll be relieved it’s not wildly worse. The Mackies are more dry-sounding than the current X1800’s internal processing, but otherwise the Mackie easily holds its own and certainly doesn’t add any processing texture. The Mackie firewire card, if you do indeed have the pro version, is about as good as you’re going to get in ADC and DAC from an analog mixer.

It’s really integration with the SC Prime players and effects where the X1800 obviously shines, though. You’ve got no filters even on the D2, so you’re probably going to be little overwhelmed at first on the X1800 with all the stuff on it. The integration will make you smile.

The D2’s upfader curves are pretty comparable to the curves available on the X1800’s little ones, so I think you’ll be comfy with it. The D4’s upfader curves are those very linear type that do almost nothing until the top with no adjustment. You’d find the X1800’s either a revelation or awkward if you were used to the D4, so not a big deal coming from the D2 for you. Both are similarly very low resistance, with the D2 being slightly more loose.

You do have Iso mode on the Denon (default) like on the Mackie, but can also choose a less colored and more gradual EQ mode. (Edit: With all three tone knobs at 12 o’clock for a channel, the Denon iso bypasses to be uncolored.)

I think you’d prefer the gain/trim knobs on the Denon. I’m not a fan of the little unity notch on the Mackies’ little gain/trims, though you have the option on both to just adjust gain/trim using the Iso and not touching the top knob.

D4’s master out is one of those opamp-controlling ones with tons of boost, while the D2’s master trim is a lot more like the Denon if you stick the Denon at -10 in the settings. So pretty similar there, too.

All the D2 & D4 meters are goofy being a single color other than the clip light and the X1800’s channel meters are kind of weird too with their lack of all the LEDs on the master meter and being very flickery, so it’s kind of a tie there.

You’ll finally have a real cue/prgm headphone crossfading knob rather than that useless mini crossfader on the D2 that should have been just a 3-way switch. And you’ll have split cue and side selection.

How much you have to spend? If you have the money and two SC Prime players already, I think you’ll be happy with an X1800 and keeping the D2 around as a backup.

The main feature I’m after on the X1800 is the midi out. I have a 505 loopstation (which is my favourite piece of gear of all time) that I perform with. In Traktor I was able to use midi tempo and clock to sync to it. Right now my gig’n mixer is the x600 which has been obsoleted so it’s time for it’s replacement.

I’ll tell you the story with the Mackie.

I bought it in 2006 when the pro version with the built in firewire card was just released. $650 cad. At the time I was using 2x dns3500 and a pioneer mixer. All I wanted at the time was to record my sets on to my Mac. (I had to get a new Mac because they phased out the g4 processor in favour of intel chips).

A year later I found out about software dj’n and dvs and realized my d.2pro was built for it. Never heard of Traktor and serato but I heard of virtual dj though. So 2007 was when I got into traktor since on the box and the mixer was the traktor certified mixer logo. The only software that I was using before that was propellerheads reason which I still use and love today.

In 2008 is when I realized that the D.2pro was GOD of all software mixers. The Mackie could not only do dvs but I could make multitrack mixes.

The D.2pro has a 13in 6 out lowest latency on the planet sound card. You can have dvs then pull tracks after the eq to multi track record (in my case I sent the audio from 1 and ch 2 to reason) then fx send to reason fx or traktor effectors, then record your xfader movements then have anything (and I do mean anything) you wish playing back through fx return Each of these steps have their own indivdal tracks in reason even the mic and main mix.

Rane did not do this until 2013 and still after 12 years only $rane$ and $allen heath$ at a premium offers what the Mackie does still to this day with Rane being the only one for 2ch mixers.

Sorry but the discontinued Mackie spoiled me. It’s seem like it won’t be obsolete anytime soon either.

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Yes, firewire is much more suited to low latency A/V streaming than USB 2.0. I’ve never got that into routing ASIO that elaborately on the Mackies. I only ever used the D4’s ASIO firewire card to play from DJ software with four decks & controllers and then I use it to record back to a computer regardless of how I use the Mackie. My D2 does not have the firewire card installed. I can say that the X1800 shows in Windows audio even outside of ASIO, like the Mackie firewire card. The MP2015 and some other mixers can’t do that.

If you get the X1800, the D2 won’t spontaneously combust or anything. If Mackie can’t refurb it, maybe eventually you’ll find someone who can fix it up for you. Keep it.

The X1800 might be a little furry, mushy, textured, and closed-in sounding compared to some other top digital mixers, but it’s not horrible and excels at physicality and doesn’t have any digital glare, etch, or gloss. Maybe the biggest fault with it I have is the sense the sound’s being pushed through a tiny hole, almost like what happens when I use too steep of crossover filters on a DSP and get group delay distortions… can sound a bit straining or constrained.

Clearly you’re already spoiled by one of the best analog mixers out there already, so another flavor of analog-like sound should be right up your ally. Granted, the X1800 sound might be more of a DM905 or Matrix 3 than a D2 or D4, but it sounds more like analog than it does like an MP2015 that some people think is too clinical. I hope Denon DJ can improve the firmware on it eventually, but even if they don’t I think it’s pretty acceptable quality. Who knows, maybe this was an intentional voicing they were going for to cater to all those people who complain about digital’s sound.

Most importantly, you’re kind of missing out experiencing just what the Prime stuff can do if you don’t try all the pieces together. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

I put the DN-X1700 and the Xone 4D both back in with the SC5000s and sadly right now with the current SC5000 and X1800 firmwares it’s not even close. Those two old mixers have euphonic, lush mids & highs and similar voicing. The X1800’s digital inputs and further internal processing cannot hold a candle to those older mixers’ sound, and as amazing as the old Denon is with digital inputs in general, there’s something weird going on with the SC Prime players’ digital outputs such that I’m not even enjoying my lauded old Denon as much as the analog mixers. In fact, whatever sense of dynamics compression we seem to be hearing separate from the measured low-pass filtering, I think the sense of crushed dynamics and heaviness is more a problem with the digital outputs and not the analog ones, though both digital and analog outputs have the low-pass filtering. I’m not even saying the low-pass filtering is the only issue on the players’ overall processing. The old Denon digital mixer still currently has better processing than the new Denon mixer regardless of how you get the audio in, but there’s something iffy about the sample rate conversion or clock or something specifically on the SC Prime players’ SPDIF. It pains me to admit this. I hope it’s a purely software thing. Testing the X1800 with USB input to USB output, the X1800 did actually test impressively that I could tell in just the simple Rightmark audio analyzer and the Isos & EQs did exactly what they should do with TrueRTA using test waveforms like saw, square, triangle, etc. :man_shrugging:

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Would paragraphs cost extra ?

Your response on this is very same to your point on the signals too hot (IYO) in another discussion. Could the two discussed be merged, if you’re going to keep crossing over from discussions - if either point is backed up by any other owners

These are relevant in both topics. If you’re not part of these discussions or you don’t have something to add, why are you posting?

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It just seems, repeatedly, you’re just trying to berate products for reasons that few, if any, others are affected by, or worried about

Get them engineers a MP2015! Holy shmoley is that a transparent mixer to the original source. Might make the inputs sound a teeny tiny bit more detailed, contrasty, and fast, but otherwise is really difficult to hear the difference even with quick A-B swapping. Startling upper midrange resolution. Listen to other mixers and then the original source and it’s like, yeah, ok, the others are kinda glossing over that stuff. The Rane just kind of shines a light through it.

You still have an X1700? I love the upsampling on that thing to pieces. Bass isn’t stunning or anything on it, just adequate, but the rest of the frequency range is great. Piping in 44.1 or 48 into it with it set to 96 and I often find myself not wanting to mix anymore and just listen instead.

Just sharing another observation after comparing the sound of the two headphone outputs using 3 of my trusted headphones (1 DJ, 2 Audiophile)-

The sound of the 1/4 inch jack is far superior than the 3.5mm.

Compared it across different genres of music in full WAV CD-quality rips, and the sound signature is consistent:

the 1/4" jack has a meatier sound, more details in the mid, I can hear the reverb and tails of synthesizers better, the strings have more body and the bass has more extension and information. The 3.5 mm is leaner sounding and the highs are not as resolved, the shimmers of cymbals are coarser.

Only a direct comparison will yield this of course. So for best sound, stick with the 1/4 inch jack.

While you could be right, I’ll find it hard to belief there would be different processing between them. I even think it just would be the same wire internally.

However, I will try to check also and see if I hear a difference.

Sorry but that is 100% bs… I think the cue outputs are both parallel…

It should be BS, doesn’t make sense, unfortunately I can hear it using my reference recordings. It’s very subtle and you won’t really notice unless it’s concentrated listening and you try to pick apart the sound. The differences were even less using my DJ headphone (Senn HD25-II), but was noticeable using 2 other hi-fi oriented phones.

It shouldn’t bother anyone, it’s tiny and given how this mixer will be used, it’s not an issue.

What I haven’t tried is playing real vinyl on it. My records are stored for now unfortunately and couldn’t try.

Does the volume drop on one headphone already plugged in when you connect to the other jack? Might be parallel, might be two different outputs. You could also test this with a multimeter continuity tester.

If they’re two different outputs, I’d wonder if their data from mixer DSPs is potentially independent, might bring up some interesting possibilities, like ability to make channels 1 & 2 one jack and channels 3 & 4 the other.

I didn’t try plugging the headphones on both plugs at the same time. One headphone A/B switched on either output at a time. I wanted to hear the merits of each output, that’s all.

I didn’t say you had. That’s what you need to do to see if they’re on the same circuit, though – have something connected to both, headphones, multimeter, or something.

The sound quality on my X1800 is pure crap. After a year of use it started that clicking problem with distorted sound. I got onto the supplier, who then got onto Denon that said tighten the base screws and that will cure the issue. I tried all the fixes but none worked. I got back onto my supplier and haven’t heard anything back (Over 4 months ago). Denon should put a sticker on the X180 box saying “thanks for buying our product it’s good for 1 years of use, after that you will have to buy a new mixer”