Arfa Daily wrote:


** Back in the mid 70s when disco took off in Australia, I had quite a few
customers who hired out DJ equipment - some of these systems were large
enough to double as a PA for bands.

The failure rate of the amplifiers was very high and so I got plenty of
repair work on SAE 2200s & 2400s, Phase Linear 400s & 700s and Yamaha 2200
power amplifiers and many others.

I even designed a good quality DJ mixer that was produced in quantity and
sold as JAI Sound.

When the disco craze started to wane in the late 80s, things turned nasty
and a lot of crims entered the business - mostly as DJs who has bought
their own gear.

One of my regular customers disposed of all his DJ hire stock cos he was
getting constant death threats from competitors. It was that nasty.

Disco use is the hardest use of amps and speakers I know of - add take
away hire to almost anyone and you have a disaster looing for somewhere to
happen.

IME, DJs are equipment wreckers and thoroughly nasty people.



The
Pioneer CDJs are nothing at all like a conventional CD player,

** I have seen and done work on Pioneer CDJ850s and a few similar units. Also rather nice disco mixers made by Allen & Heath - which, despite being built in China, avoid using SMD and are easy to access work on.

You are even out of date - at least in this country,

** My post, like TW's is about the scene in Sydney, Australia.

My most recent disco hire customer sold and rented out the exact sort of gear you mention plus a range of dB Tech powered speakers - mainly Opera and Fifty series. The failure rates with these was frightening, as they were never engineered for such hard use.

I no longer deal with DJs (since the mid 1990s) as so few of them own any sound equipment. All Sydney's nightclubs have elaborate, installed systems and I get their power amps brought to me for service from time to time - usually in the worst condition I have ever seen power amps get into.

And the venue operators invariably expect to pay next to nothing for repairs.


.... Phil