Buying Guide:DJ Equipment Part 1 - Choosing an audio player

Vinyl vs. digital

The first thing you’ll need to decide is whether you’ll be playing digital audio or vinyl. The heated debate among DJs about which is better cannot be settled here, so let’s just mention a few reasons you might choose one over the other. CDs won’t warp or wear out, you can burn extra copies, and with MP3s you can take a huge collection of music with you in a heck of a lot less space than records.

The reasons you might choose vinyl are a bit more subjective. Some swear the sound is better. Others say it’s more creative than CDs and some say it’s just plain sexier. Another reason to choose vinyl is that you can actually see where a breakdown is in the groove of a record, so you always know when it’s coming.

If you can’t decide, you can always get both! Another option is to check out DJ software likeRane Serato Scratch Live, which lets you play MP3s from your computer with special records on your turntables, so you can combine the feel of vinyl with the benefits of digital music. Other popular DJ performance software solutions are Stanton’s FinalScratch and PCDJ’s Red or Blue.