Even though the unit looks cool, there are a few things you need to know before you jump in this revolutionary gadget. First of all, if you're used to play around with Macbooks and softwares like Traktor, Virtual DJ or any of such, you should not use an SDJ-2. Why? Because it is not possible to use sub-folders on your storage device. However, for an old-timer (like me for instance), you will enjoy playing around with the unit since we never used laptops to mix. Personaly, I need the feeling of either vinyl or "good ol'" CD players. Yeah! The dual CD player era, baby!!! Or you can use your imagination and store your music collection on numerous cards like I do in order to find your way around as easily as what you do on your laptop. For example, I have one SD Card used for 90's only. On that card, I split the songs by BPM, so I have one folder for 110-119 BPM, 120-129, etc. So far so good, I never looked around for hours to find my tracks... except when my old brain could not remember the artist who sang "the song that goes la... la... la...", but that's another story!
Second, if you buy the SDJ-2 to use with USB keys, forget about it; you'd rather use a unit from any other brand (and I won't name them because I'm sold to American Audio!). For a reason I can't explain, if you put MP3's that use any special character (; & ü, etc.), not only the MP3 won't be able to play, but it will screw up your whole key. You will see the same message as if there is no device plugged in "Please Insert Memory Device". So, you might need to waste an entire hour (if not more) trying to figure out which MP3 out of your 2,000 is creating this mess. You might wanna clean your MP3 files before dropping them on your USB key using a tool called ID3KILL ( http://id3kill.en.softonic.com ), but life is too short, use SD cards!!! What is more mysterious is that if you use SD cards, this problem won't occur. I tried to fill out my cards with corrupted MP3 files, MP3 files containing special characters, various bitrate files and files with tons of ID3 tags and they still managed to work. If I had done the same with USB keys, the unit would have almost exploded!
Aside from those 2 little details that really don't change anything for me (but can do for some DJ's), this unit is an upgraded version the SDJ-1 released a few years back. The SDJ-1 was using SD cards up to 4GB maximum and back in the days, those cards were expensive for no reason, so you were stuck having to pay the big bucks for a technology that was about to die. The SDHC cards killed the SD market a year after the SDJ-1 was released. With the SDJ-2, you can use SDHC cards up to 16GB, which is a very good standard considering that you can store anywhere between 400-800 MP3's, if they're encoded at 192-320 Kbps, on a 4GB SDHC card, which is better quality than 128 Kbps. However, you have to consider that for high bitrate quality MP3's, you might go with SDHC cards of at least class 4, if not, your files might play tricks on you while they're played, which you don't want in the middle of your set. For SD and SDHC classes knowledge, I invite you to go there : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...l#Speed_Class_Rating
Not only the SDJ-2 can use SDHC cards, but the unit is more than a basic DJ tool; it now also has a mixer between the two controllers. OK, that mixer is very basic, but it can do the job for bedroom DJ's or to throw in a house party. I personnaly use an external mixer since I absolutely need my GAIN, HIGH, MID & LOW. Over that, the unit has a seamless loop and 3 cue points memory. If you experienced American DJ back in the 90's, you're probably still shocked by their instant start that was... not instant at all! You will be glad to know this problem has been fixed since the mid-2000's. I would compare American Audio's instant to any other brands now and they would either finish first or second.
Now for the "test drive". Driven, tested and true. My SDJ-2 is close to one year old now and I never got any problem with it. It's been used to record radio shows in my basement's studio, I'm using it in clubs where I work and even in parties I have with my mobile service. However, I never tried to spill a beer on it and not planning on doing so (I'd be the stupidest guy on earth!). After one year, I'm still in love with my purchase, I promote it and a lot of my friends DJ/contacts are thinking of (or did) buy one because they tried it and I bugged them too much for them to make this smart move. Let me add by experience that a crowd prefers to watch a DJ mixing with a unit than watching a black rectangle with a white apple in the middle and two arms on each side doing music!
Overall, the SDJ-2 is a great unit that you can carry easily anywhere, uses a technology that almost no one else uses, very reliable and not costly which makes it unique and amazing. If you plan on switching from turn-tables (or CD players) to digital media, the SDJ-2 is the option you might consider before anything else. My appreciation: 9.5/10
