With contrasting surface finishes on different sections of the unit – and a layout design inherited from club-standard gear that includes illumination around the play / cue buttons and Color On Jog Display – the XDJ-RX3 has a look that echoes a professional setup. When this unit is used in pure standalone mixer mode and the music comes in analog form from the SLs – can one switch off the central screen on this unit? So that a fully analog, immersive experience is created without a 7 inch screen glaring in DJs eyes in a darker bedroom setting? I mean, if I was Pioneer I would built this simple on/off option….if you know what I mean – it makes so much sense (you wouldn’t want the screen to sit there idle and just create unnecessary glare when using only mixer section and turntables in a darker room with ambient lighting everywhere would you?) The bottom line for me was that my mixes on the Traktor s4 were better, more creative and easier than this more expensive Pioneer unit.

In this Head To Head feature we’re pitting the Pioneer DJ XDJ-RX2 against the XDJ-RR. Both are two-channel standalone devices for Rekordbox, meaning you can spin using just a USB thumb drive that has all your music exported from Rekordbox, and you can also connect them to your laptop for spinning with Rekordbox DJ. Most importantly: if the ‘standalone mixer’ in this unit is fully digital (as far as the internal architecture goes)…the analog signal provided from playing vinyl on 1200s would lose its most important virtue i.e. warm analog sound because of this (durinng the process of ‘digitalization’ by digital mixer and then making it analog again before sending it out to monitors) wouldn’t you say? Beat FX gives you access to a further 8 common FX. Control over them is more granular compared to Sound Color FX. You can adjust the beat length of the FX via preset lengths or the Tap button for more specific requirements. Options to switch between various channels give you even more flexibility. The Beat FX range is solid with Delay, Echo, Spiral, Reverb, Trans, Flanger, Pitch and Roll. XDJ-RX DJ Controller has two CDJ-style platters that have a similar club standard layout and gives Artists on-the-spot access to top performance features including Slip Mode, Beat Sync, loops and Quantized cues. The unit's performance pads add a physical element, with immediate access to Auto Beat Loops and Hot Cues, or DJs can select and slice loops live in the mix with RX's brand-new Loop Slice function. Now, we want to hear from you –what do you think? Have you tried it, or would you consider doing so? Why or why not? Sound off in the comments below.

Pioneer DJ set themselves a real challenge when upgrading the XDJ-RX2. The recent upgrades to both the CDJ and DJM range have pushed the boundaries of DJing - choosing which features to include, and how to cram them into the RX3 form factor, has resulted in a DJ system which challenges expectations at this price point. Your last 2 sentences – that’s exactly what I am thinking of doing –> getting xdj-rx and hooking up 1200s so that if I want I can use standalone mixer function on the xdj-rx.

Ultimately, though, the question we opened with was: Is this now as good as software DJing, but without the laptop? (By “good”, I mean “as much fun”.) And broadly, I’d say it is. Looking at the XDJ-RX’s predecessors, the XDJ-Aero with all its wireless goodness was ultimately answering questions nobody was asking, and for us digital fans the XDJ-R1 felt too much like boring, limited old school CD DJing. Worth noting: upon initial exploration, I realized that the Playlist Bank options are only findable if you hit the “Playlist” button above the screen –they are not viewable if you try to navigate to playlists using the left-hand dashboard scroll. This is somewhat confusing as it’s not immediately intuitive, but once you nail that flow it’s straightforward. The Pioneer XDJ-RX2 is our best-selling DJ system and is a must-have for any artist looking for an all-in-one setup that comes equipped with all the professional features you expect to find on a high-end DJ controller.

Introducing the XDJ-RX3: With key features derived from Pioneer DJ's flagship gear. This upgraded all-in-one DJ system offers a 10.1-inch touch screen for effortless browsing and precise mixing.

On paper at least, the XDJ-RX is the first controller from Pioneer that has convincing answers to some of the big shortcomings people roll out when it comes to software DJing – and I’m not referring to the detractors who won’t give it a go, but those of us who’ve done it for years and still see things about it that aren’t perfect. The XDJ-RX3 also includes 14 Beat FX and 6 Sound Color FX from the DJM-900NXS2, as well as Performance Pads and newly added Release FX for dynamic music manipulation. The new audio design eliminates external noise for clear, natural sound, and the system inherits layout design traits from club-standard Pioneer DJ equipment. For Sound Color FX, the XDJ-RX2 has Dub Echo, Sweep, Noise and Filter, plus it has a Parameter knob for added FX tweakability. Meanwhile the XDJ-RR has Dub Echo, Pitch, Noise and Filter. On the Beat FX side, the XDJ-RX2 has loads more: Delay, Echo, Spiral, Reverb, Transformer, Flanger, Pitch and Roll, while the XDJ-RR only has Echo, Reverb and Flanger.

I’ve been using a Traktor s4 with and F1 for about a year, I think it’s a brilliant system with a v intuitive design and some amazing features. When it works its amazing. The crux of it is a powerful laptop otherwise audio artifacts can soon ruin the fun.The XDJ-RX3 is a versatile 2-channel all-in-one DJ system that offers both flexibility and practicality and includes a range of new features taken directly from the CDJ-3000 multi player and DJM-900NXS2 mixer, as well as a brand-new 10.1-inch touch screen with a higher resolution and frame rate than its predecessor. The new features intended to improve the navigation flow and make for a faster browsing and searching process include: Windows ® 8 / Windows ® 8.1 / Windows ® 8 Pro / Windows ® 8.1 Pro / Windows ® 7 Home Premium / Professional / Ultimate Xone:43C (with built in sound card) + two 1200s. This will give me fully analog sound quality with playing vinyls on 1200s as the this mixer is fully analog – although I am still not sure if this is rule of thumb that analog mixer sound better then digital ones. This will also give me the ability to use it in ‘digital DJing’ with Serato DJ so it would be very similar to using DDJ-SZ right? (especially after adding Xone K1 or K2). This will also give me full DVS control which is great. The biggest downside of this is it gives me no taste and the ability to get used to rekordbox ecosystem of club standard’s DJM/CDJ setup AT ALL. When I will start playing in a club with DJM/CDJs the learning curve from this setup that I will have used at home will be steep. It will be interesting to see what comes next. I would like to see Pioneer release a controller like this with four channels and a touchscreen priced a bit higher, and another one, again with a touchscreen (leaving that off the XDJ-RX was a mistake), but without all the complicated inputs and outputs of this unit, only controlling two software channels, and so coming in cheaper.