The Basics
Before I get into my flow, this review will be of the new TTX. It’s obviously valid for the older ones as well and where there are differences, I’ll be sure to highlight them for you.
When you first gaze upon the TTX, you know that this is something very different from the rest of the competition. Rather than taking the safe route and catering for the established market, Numark decided to design the ultimate deck – pleasing as many people as possible but also pushing the boundaries of established design and jumping a long way past the “safe” line drawn in the DJ sand by Technics.
Challenging the conventions of deck design isn’t new – indeed Vestax (who else) brought out the PDX-A2S, squarely aimed at making the scratch DJ’s life easier – and thus consequently sold in miniscule numbers, despite being actually logistically better for DJ use. So Numark still had to at least work not too far outside the deck design rule book.
Construction wise, the TTX is a back breaker. It’s immensely heavy, weighing in at a back breaking 28lb. The body is made up of 4 parts – a cosmetic top cover, the plastic body, a synthetic anti-resonant inner core and a silicon rubber base – all sat on top of 4 adjustable rubber feet. Whether all this addition body weight makes a difference to the sound is debatable, but I’d say it’s no better or worse than the competition. All I can add is that it doesn’t kill feedback from the body, but there isn’t any excessive noise from it either.
This weight certainly extends to the overall quality of the construction as well. The general feel of the TTX is one of supreme quality – much like closing a VW car door. Well… apart from the 2 start/stop buttons. They work but just feel a tad flimsy. Indeed when I got mine out of the box, I had some real problems with sticky switches which in use, have disappeared. Never thought I’d have to break a deck in.
The Display
Perhaps the most in your face element of the TTX is the striking neon blue circular display. Showing everything you need to know, this display gives a very visual readout of everything that’s going on with your TTX. On the whole, this means seeing the pitch adjust in big blue letters, but it’s also a visual indicator of platter speed, pitch, BPM etc. It also comes with zippy solid blocks that indicate platter rotation – really useful as otherwise I’d never know the vinyl was spinning. This screen also indicate the start and brake settings when adjusting.
The contrast can be adjusted depending on the lighting conditions. Interesting fact – there’s a small part of the display called “effect”. You can’t see it unless you ramp up the display contrast and look hard otherwise you’ll miss it. Using advanced Photoshop techniques aka ramping up the curves, you can see all the various options on the display. But what is this effects option used for used for? Nothing that’s what. A quick email to Numark told me that it was an idea that was never implemented. Now you know.
