I have DJ lessons at College, everyone else has decks at home, so it seems I'm being left behind. I'm looking for some simple, basic decks to practice on in my spare time. I want to spend as little money as possible, if I were to get serious about it, I'd obviously get some better ones but anyway, can you tell me if these are worth the money:

Numark DJ IN A BOX v.6 - £189.00 / $356.44

Numark BATTLE PAK v.4 - £255.00 / $480.91

Citronic Total-DJ-Pro Package - £279.00 / $526.18

Cheers for your help.

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double post

be quick and you can make me an offer on mine
End on ebay in 1 day
2 direct drives and a mixer
gimme 155 + shipping and they are yours

Opinions on these, guys:

Numark TT-1810 + DM1001X Mixer

Soundlab Direct Drive Turntables + Mixer

Gemini Decks & Mixer Direct drive SA-600

Citronic PD2 direct-drive turntables/decks

I'm a novice, so your opinions would be gratefully received.

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Last edited by Woody4eva on Nov-26-2004 at 15:00

I chose gemini's for my first tables.
I have the PMX-500 mixer in the package you're lookin at. It works great, with the exception of the crossfader which went down the toilet faster than an unwanted pregnancy on prom night.

I cant recall what the name of the tables are, I want to say XL-300(but I think it's 500), which have given me no problems yet.
After letting some more experienced djs play on them, they've said that their pretty decent for beginner tables.

I've heard bad news about stantons(at least the low-end stantons)
and my buddy has numarks but, i haven't tried em out so I dont know.

gemini SA-600s are twitchy. i think they have been discontinued cuz i havent seen them anywhere. i cant tell the difference from the xl 300s from the feel of the platter. they are supposed to have better torque than the 300s i think but i found that the same technique i had to develop to mix on xl 300s worked on SA-600s (tapping/touching the platter to slow it down then twisting the spindle if you go too far). SA-600s suffer from the same thing that 300s do. you can rest your finger on the platter and it wont seem to slow the record down at first but then suddenly it'll dip, alarmingly (cuz of the weak motor). you can definitely get used to it cuz ive seen people mix competantly on both these decks. but i found them twitchy. but im not very good so take what i say with a pinch of salt. not sure how either deck stacks up against xl 500s although id be willing to bet theres not much difference. there are a few odd features on the SA 600 that i find quite useless - the brake for one. you can do quick stops with it but its not instantaneous. hmmm. the pitch control doesnt have a dip on the 0 though which is nice so mixing around the 0 isnt as sensitive as something like the budget stanton decks.

i found the stanton str8 30s were really good beginner decks. just manipulating the platter made sense. you rest your finger on it. it slows it down. you push the record along. it speeds it up. unlike the xl 300s which required a slightly more abstract way of mixing. the str8 30s have noticeably higher torque. but the pitch control has an annoying dip on the 0 (as mentioned above) and its very sensitive around the 0. dont know what the gemini TT-02s are like but they look like reissues of the xl 300. they look sexy though.

never known anyone that had numarks or citronics although the numark ones get rave reviews and around here they seem like the popular choice for people on a budget. cant comment unfortunately cuz ive never used em.

I would get the Numark Battle Pak, the one listed in your initial post. I bought this package two years ago when I first got into dj'ing. I have since upgraded to better equipment, however, I have no regrets about it.

Overall it is a nice set for the beginner. Like you, I knew I wasn't getting the best of the best with the Numark set, but my goal was to get as much out of it as I could until I felt physically limited. In my case, this was about a year.

The turntables and needles are probably the strongest pieces in the set. They lasted for me until I needed to upgrade. The torque is fairly decent, although a bit more wouldn't hurt. The pitch adjustment is also pretty good, although at the extremes of the pitch selector, the beats may not lock up quite as nice due to fluctuation. That necessarily isn't a bad thing because it teaches you to work harder at beatmatching and will make it easier for future purchases.

The mixer is so-so. It is only a 2-band unit, which won't allow much for eq-ing, but will allow for basic crossfading and mixing with the channel faders. But, since a beginner doesn't know all the tricks-of-the-trade yet, the mixer will definitely do the job. The only thing missing is a power switch.

If you decide to get this set, you WILL NEED to buy a new pair of headphones. The ones that come with the package won't work with the way a dj needs headphones to work. The sound is crap, they don't swivel anywhere, and they feel very cheap and flimsy. I upgraded headphones immediately.

Like I said, the Battle Pak is a perfect package for a beginner. It will teach the fundamentals and is decent enough to give a nice taste of what being a dj is all about.

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"...the major problem in the past was to locate the settings of the ancient plastic city. referring to our latest findings plastic city wasn't a city built of stone or metal but more kind of built out of ideas.... (PLASTIC CITY) can't be found by our archaeologists. we will have to examine the ideas and then try to re-construct plastic city in out minds..." (EXCERPT FROM "SCIENTIST REPORT NETWORK" #12.587, YEAR 2495)

DJ lessons at college...what college?

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-tom