At a press conference at IFA Berlin yesterday, Philips announced the M1X-DJ speaker box, co-designed by Armin Van Buuren for Algoriddim’s djay 2 running on an iPad. The M1X-DJ is basically a very loud speaker box that has an iPad DJ controller built in. You can use the speaker standalone and connect Bluetooth devices to play music over it in standalone mode, but turning the top of the unit around reveals a small DJ controller.
The DJ controller has a small iPad stand built in that will fit the iPad or iPad mini and a coiled cable with a lightning connector, allowing you to DJ with Algoriddim’s djay software, the app being free for purchasers. The controller itself is quite basic with two channels, a crossfader, actually quite nice jogwheels, 3 band EQ (full kill), headphone cue, pitch faders, sync buttons and transport section with cue. The unit also has a record button which triggers djay’s record function to record your mix on the fly.
All the more advanced functions like sample player, effects and so on have to be triggered on the iPad screen, which actually works quite well as the angle of the iPad in the holder of the controller is good. The unit is of course aimed at the beginner DJ with its basic functions, and as a fun carry around unit. But as it also works also on battery power, it might even be something for the next beach party (if you could see your iPad screen properly in the sunshine, of course).
Launching the device, Armin Van Buuren said he wanted something he could take to the beach with him and have fun with and also something he can recommend to the many mothers writing to him, asking what they should buy their sons to start DJing with.
All the buttons, headphone socket and so on are ergonomically placed where you would want them and the unit has really good bass for its size, so maybe this is where you can see Armin’s influence in the thing. The retail price of the unit will be about €399, and that budget shows in the plastic construction, but at least the pitchfaders, crossfader and jogwheels worked quite nicely in our short hands-on time. Also nice is the TRS headphone plug and audio out plugs to hook it up to a PA system or power speakers.
A cool feature is that you can actually daisy-chain several M1X-DJs together and create your own mini-PA or DJ together with friends that also have the unit. We will of course try to give you a full review as soon as we can get hold of a M1X-DJ for a little longer in our trusty test studio. We also made videos of the press conference and the hands on workshop with Armin van Buuren, and as soon as the videos are out of the cutting room we’ll bring them to you here.
Well, it’s certainly unique. What do you think of this, and what do you think of Armin Van Buuren’s backing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Terry 42
