It’s been a few years since I bought some new DJ gear. I’m not made of money and I’m also not that much of a gearhead, who always needs to upgrade his shit or has to add some gizmos to his booth. However, the concept of the Denon DJ Prime Go felt really intriguing. A standalone DJ console (Don’t have any of those yet) with a battery, that allows you to just go anywhere and play a DJ set for (as advertised) four hours, without having it to plug in.

So I bought one.

Mostly because I got one for a good price. Otherwise I would’ve waited. But as far as I can tell, it was worth it.

Disclaimer: This is not really an in depth review. I won’t talk much about the technical specs or anything. If you wanna know more about that, there are many reviews of that kind, from way more qualified people than me on the web. These are more or less a few words about my personal impression and experience with it.

Works even really well for the extra lazy bedroom DJ.

The first thing that I noticed, is that it’s big and heavy for a supposedly portable DJing console  I mean, not really that much bigger than my good, ol’ Hercules DJ Control Steel and definitely smaller than some of the Pioneer monsters out there, but I imagined it more easily portable. At the very least its weight makes it feels legit, but I guess sitting on a chair and having it on your lap might get a bit tiresome with time.  And I’m sure they could’ve made it smaller, but then the touchscreen would’ve been unusable, I guess. In its current form, the screen is great. Looks nice, even in its darkest setting bright enough, reacts well to every touch of my finger and isn’t instantly full of fingerprints.

The layout takes a bit to get used to., but within a few hours I already knew by instinct where everything was and how to navigate my way through the menu. The FX are also surprisingly nice, although my favourite is the beatroll. I really need to restrain myself from overusing it. Another bonus point is that you can record your set without any extra hardware (except an USB stick or an SD card). That function is part of the software.

But why, though?

In general there are only two things that really annoy me. I don’t see a reason why the USB port had to be on the back. That way the stick is just, well, sticking out, which is impractical for a number of reasons. It takes space away, random strangers can just pull it out, it’s hard to reach, etc. The headphone ports and volume knobs for it and the aux in are in the front,  which isn’t as bad as the USB port in the back, but I’m sure they could’ve found some space on top. There is also a SD card slot, so that you don’t HAVE to use an USB stick if you don’t want to, so that’s good.

However, the most annoying thing is the level meter. It’s really short, so not the most accurate of its kind, and it’s only for the master volume.. If you wanna know how loud the tracks on the respective decks are, you have to trust your ears. Fingers crossed that in future updates they add some kind of visual cue for the software.  If you turn it too loud, the Prime Go has a pretty hard and merciless limiter, by the way, which really fucks with the normally pretty good sound quality. So if you really needed another reason not to redline (Or blueline, as it is here), here you have one.

Back to the things I love! For example that to turn it on when it’s running on battery, you have to push the button and then hold the touchscreen for a few seconds. That is definitely a smart way to save battery power, in case it accdentally turns itself on in the bag. And that, even with WiFi activated, the battery lasts really long is another plus. I fully charged it on Friday afternoon and by Sunday night it still had 20% power left. (At that point a low battery warning flashes on the screen, by the way.) One day I have to check out if it really lasts for four hours at once.

I had no chance to really take it on the road yet, thanks to shitty weather conditions. So far I just carried it around in my apartment, played a mini test set on my bed or in the living room and even while I was taking a dump! (Just kidding about the last part.) But all in all I have to say that, judging by the last three days, this is a good piece of gear.

By the way, included was a free two month subscription for Beatport Link (among other services that I didn’t care for). It’s cool, to be honest. Works really well within the stable WiFi in my apartment, but I have the suspicion, the stream is in a pretty low bitrate. I’m not an audiophile with the most high end speakers, but some of the tracks that I played through Link, sounded a bit flatter than the actual copies in my collection.  And that I can’t record my set when I play tracks from Link is understandable, but also frustrating, so I’m pretty sure that I will cancel it, after the free trial is over.