Pioneer CDJ500MK2 Limited Professional CD Player Old School but Still Going Strong

0:00 DJs who had Technics and think

When I started DJing a long, long time ago, I had an all-in-one console, belt drive turntables, and I used to look at DJs who had Technics and think, just wondering what it would be like. But I got there in the end because I was able to buy a set, saved up, bought a set. Had those for ages, all the way through the 80s, early 90s. And then I remember looking at... Some strange object thinking oh my god people are playing CDs in a square box that's flat and you can change this speed and I was like amazed and they were Pioneer CD players. And I've got a set, I've got two of the, I believe they are some of the original players from back in the day. Now again, being slightly ignorant here, I don't know if they were the exact originals. I mean, these are the Mark IIs, so there probably was a Mark I and I believe also there was a CDJ-300 as well. But check this out. Look at this. Now that is technology big style from the 90s. This is the Pioneer...

2:14 On here, the Nexus Mark II, I have a loop

It was known then, no longer. Of course now it's Pioneer DJ, but back in the day, Pioneer CDJ 500 Mark II Limited Professional. Now I have been told that I also have the... Hold on, what's this one here? This one here is just the CDJ 500 Professional, but that one was the Limited and I've been told that it just had... I think it's like a better memory in it, so anti-shock and something like that, but that's as far as I know. But it does need a bit of a clean, but there it is. Now this, OK, it works. It's testament to how rock solid these players are because this is very old. I don't know the exact amount of years, but it's well over 20 years old. If not 25 years old, so it's still going. Right, so on here, the Nexus Mark II, I have a loop. It's just so we don't get any trouble from the YouTube police. Slow it down, speed it up. Okay, so of course now with the Nexus you load the CDs in from the front of the player, so I'm going to eject that.

Whereas the old school CDJ-500 Mark II, eject, and that pops up. So you put the CD in there, and let's press play. A loop, not the best of loops. Let's go to, I think we had track 3, so press play. That's not too bad actually. Slow the loop down, jog wheel, move it anti-clockwise, speed it up, move it clockwise. Now we have master tempo here as well, so what we can do... I don't know if you can hear that. Again, I don't want to use any music just in case we have copyright issues, but even with the beat you can hear, without the master tempo engaged, we are having a key change. Listen. Plus or minus 10%. Put master tempo on now, listen. I have to admit there is a kind of a slight digital sound there,

4:45 You're like someone who was amazing

You get that, you don't get it at all. And we have time mode so we can do count up, count down. Also got a re-loop button here. Track search, so track one, two, three, four and then search through the track. And that was sort of pretty much it. That was practically it. But back in the day, I mean, if you had a set of these, you were like... You're like a god. You're like someone who was amazing. These are just, they are amazing. Now, again, I put something on Facebook about these and this is my analogy. It's very simple. Back in the day in the UK, you know, if you started learning to drive in the 80s and 70s... You probably had a Ford something, Cortina, Escort and so on, a Capri. And slowly over time it ended up being a rust bucket and you thought, do you know what? I don't really want to spend £500 welding it all together when it's only going to be worth £500. But you see a lot of us now, including me, are like kicking ourselves because cars like that now.

Are worth an absolute fortune. Now, I don't know the exact model. Hopefully you can help me here. But there was the Ford Escort Turbo something or other, big fin at the back, huge massive fin at the back. And they're going in auctions now, good quality ones, for like nearly a hundred grand. I mean, what? I mean, my God, a hundred grand. I know one went for about 80 grand, it's insane. Now this here, this player, alright, I'm not sure, I need to check. Of course you can do some research on Google if you want to online, but I'm not sure the exact price of these when they were new. But what I honestly think is that they will hold a certain price so long as they're working and I don't think they're going to go up in price.

But this is a bit of history here. This is DJing history. And I am honoured and I am so proud to have a couple of these. And I'm going to be using them, OK? Now we don't have vinyl mode or any flashy buttons or any effects or hot cues or anything like that. But what we do have is something rock solid that can play CDs. And testament to the fact that this, the age of it, and it's still... I'm chuffed about that, practice and enjoy.

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