Customer Reviews

Numark DM1050 2 Channel 8'' Scratch Mixer

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For a mere $60.99 (nearly $20 less than at Musician's Friend and about half the MSRP) at Amazon.com, this mixer is your best bet. It has the cost of an entry-level mixer without the bleeding and fragile faders, 2-band EQ, and utter lack of scratch features that one normally finds on entry-level mixers. The faders are tough yet sensitive, with no sound bleeding. The 3-band EQ, crossfader-style cuing, and mic EQ add great functionality to this mixer. The hamster switch and crossfader slope are a nice touch if you're ever feeling a bit hip-hop or want to cut up some beats. I was originally going to get a DM950 and just upgrade in a few months, but at this price, why bother? I recommend this mixer to every startup DJ, whether you're aiming for scratch, trance, jungle, Baroque, whatever. This is an excellent mixer that doesn't sacrifice quality, though it definitely won't break the bank. I will definitely continue to buy Numark products!

i got this mixer as a gift, 2 years ago. its a very good entry level mixer, but beyond that, its useless. within 3 days the crossfader began to bleed through, and 4 or 5 days after that it became completely unresponsive. ive had it rebuilt twice only to have the same thing happen within days. ive resorted to using the volume sliders to fade and the line switches to cut, for the past year or so. if you want someone to learn the basics before jumping in to quality equipment by all means buy them this mixer, its the training wheels on the schwinn of DJing. this mixer would be a good mate for some entry level turn tables... but for someone who has been DJing for some time this mixer would be a few steps backwards.

JMHO
-Grimm

I've had this for around 6 months now. When I started using turntables, I was working at a club that let me use the equipment in my spare time. So my baseline for quality was fairly high (the pioneer 500, 800 & 700 mixers) before investing in my own gear. Since I didn't think I'd need high quality sound in my home setup, I went for this.

First off, the sliders and knobs are solid. I've had absolutely no problem with them. There was a bit of scratchiness in the volume faders when I bought it 2nd hand, but that problem was easily dealt with using contact cleaner. Knob/slider heads don't pull off, which is good. At first, I didn't like the cue fader, but I've learned to love it. All very basic stuff, but none of it as ever failed on me.

The biggest gripe I have is the sound. The volume faders may be to the liking of some people, but they feel very non-linear to me. Maybe people who prefer pulling blends on the crossfade won't mind this but it still bugs me. The EQ is... ok. Each mixer has its own EQ curves, and this one seems really uneven. The high-eq seems to cut too much into the midrange for my liking. Also, the bass-eq sensitivity seems inconsistent. I've not done quantitative sound tests for either of these claims, but it is just something that I have noticed which characterizes this mixer a bit.

My least favourite part of this piece of kit is the overall signal chain quality. Not sure if it is the phono preamps or what, but the mixer definitely degrades the sound quality. When I connect a turntable directly to my studio-computer's audio interface through a separate phono preamp, everything sounds much better. Doesnt make that much of a difference for just trying out tracks, but it does mean I won't want to record any of my mixes off this mixer.

Obviously, this is not designed to be a high-end mixer. It does its job well, and sounds decent for the price. 3 stars

I've had this mixer for 5 or 6 years - it's now somewhat outdated but still works great. I originally bought it to practice being a radio dj but since I don't do that now, this mixer has been sitting around collecting dust. I was recently going to sell it until I discovered a cool alternate use for it: I have my Sansa Fuze MP3 player connected to it and MP3's sound quite analog through this mixer, even better and more alive than through my big Sherwood receiver. This thing is great as a headphone amp - I actually forget that I'm listening to compressed music files. Additionally, I've never had any technical issues with this mixer and it's extremely easy to use (no computer involved!)

the botton line is that is this is a great value for a mixer. It's my first one, but I've used others. And I have to say, this has great functionality, seems quite durable, and is both functional and simple. For my purposes (just playing records when I DJ - no scratching, etc), it gets the job done. I can't speak to anything outside of that. I like the controls, and the cue fader is great and profoundly simple (something I think is missing from many larger, more expensive mixers).

I would say that the one and only drawback is that it does not have XLR or 1/4" outputs - only RCA, which is a problem some places. But you can always get cables to convert RCA to your preferred format. Also works great w/an iPod and monster cables.

For the price to do basic mixing, it's good. I do a fair amount of scratching and the fader was done w/n a couple of days. If you don't scratch, this is a good value.