Hey all, so a few weeks ago, I asked on this board "what is the best CD turntable?". People pointed me towards the technics, pioneer CDJ's, and numarks. So after exhausting amounts of research and many long sessions at guitar center with doubles of "aquemini", here are my impressions of the current offerings in the CD turntable market.

After trying out all of the three above, I decided that nothing comes close to the pioneers. I suppose the technics come in second best, but they are slow to start up, the platter lags substantially, and the sound output is surprisingly bad- very digital sounding. The one advantage of the technics- the spinning platter- doesn't even work like a vinyl 1200 does- they're very tough to slow or speed up to match a beat.

The numark was pretty gimmicky and all in all not even a contender in my opinion.

So I settled on the pioneer CDJ 800's (the same platter and DJ functions as the 1000MKII's but with less features at half the price). Simply put, these things are UNBELIEVABLE! The sound quality is impeccable, the platters, while admittedly non-vinyl-like (they don't spin unless you're cueing or scratching) have great response, and the loop functions are pretty amazing. I can't wait to transfer all my vinyl (even though I'm keeping a technics 1200 for listening to those great sounding records) and spin out with these. Not to mention they are very light and a good bit smaller than my technics.

So if you're on the fence about some of these for your studio, don't hesitate. One of the coolest pieces of gear I own. It's amazing that I can burn a CD of a track I'm working on, and then juggle it on two turntables 30 seconds later. Not to mention dialogue or sound effects that can be instantly scratched. The possibilities are endless!