Next in our Future DJ Gear series comes a takes on Denon’s potential next piece: a more affordable version of the SC6000.
Denon DJ’s new SC6000 players are the new favorites of many professional DJs such as Laidback Luke, combining innovative new technology with superb professional build quality. The SC6000 outperforms the expensive, industry-standard Pioneer DJ CDJ-2000 NXS2 in almost every way technology-wise, in addition to offering comparable build quality.
However, Denon DJ has yet to introduce entry-level player models to their lineup. A scaled-back version of the SC6000 that still features the same core technology in a smaller package with less “luxury features” would be a fantastic product for many budget-minded DJs like myself.
The Numbers
Denon DJ began their Prime series with nothing but high-end gear: the Prime 4 smart console, the X1800 mixer, and the SC5000 Prime smart player. All these products were fantastic, with many groundbreaking new features that made the competition look primitive. However, those products and their current successors – the X1850 and the SC6000 – are relatively expensive.
Recently, the budget-minded Prime 2 console was released alongside an ultra-portable all-in-one, turning Denon’s smart console from a single product into a whole lineup.
For DJs who prefer modular setups to all-in-one units, however, no Denon DJ budget players or mixers exist aside from used previous gen gear. This is obviously less than ideal for Denon, which is attempting to monopolize the standalone market.
What We’d Like To See In An SC6000
This concept aims to highlight what a potential lower-budget Denon DJ Prime player would look like. Generally, a few big things we’d expect to see include a smaller jog wheel sans lights, a shrunken touch screen, and half the pads of the SC6000.
A non-illuminated, shrunken jog wheel
The large, LED-illuminated 8.5 inch jog wheel on the SC6000 is absolutely a “luxury” feature. While it is very high quality, this jog wheel likely makes up a ton of the unit’s overall cost and it would be common sense to see a smaller, non-illuminated wheel on the entry player.
A smaller multi-touch screen
The SC6000 has a multi-touch display the size of an iPad, which many consider to be almost too large. A reduced-size display that would still feature the high-quality multi-touch responsiveness of the SC6000 would be common sense for a budget model. Smaller screens are already used in the budget Prime 2 and the compact Prime Go units, so the same display would be readily available for use in the SC4000.
Downsizing to four pads
In order to make the hypothetical SC4000 into the narrow unit it is, its pads would either have to be reduced in size or number. Because the pads on the current SC6000 are already somewhat small, seeing a reduced number would make more sense. Four pads can do the job of eight fairly well, especially with the “pad bank” design already used by compact Denon units such as the Prime Go.
Other “design changes” included in our SC4000 concept include:
- Single-layer playback
- No tension adjust
- Software-only brake time adjust
- No hard drive bay
- Narrower form factor
The Price
Here’s the key – you’d have to imagine a SC4000 would come in under the price of a SC5000 ($1000-ish) and close to or better than a XDJ-700 ($699). We’d imagine a $500 price tag would make a unit like this a serious no-brainer for many DJs.
What do you of the hypothetical SC4000? What else would you hope to see on this piece of gear? Let us know in the comments below.
