Pioneer DJ DM-50D Monitor Speakers Review

Video Review

First Impressions / Setting up

In all black, they’re a serious looking speaker, a decent weight (they’re made from vinyl-covered MDF with moulded plastic fronts), and overall, they feel well-built and substantial. They’re a traditional-looking speaker, with 5″ cones, 1″ tweeters, and two front ports under each woofer.

One (the left one) is the primary speaker, which around the back has the power lead socket and on/off switch, plus TRS, RCA and 1/8″ stereo minijack inputs, speaker terminals, and a “DJ/producer” switch, as well as a volume knob and 1/8″ headphones socket on the front.

The other is a secondary speaker, powered from the first, which simply has speaker wire terminals on the back. They’re rather cheap terminals, as is the supplied speaker cable, but it’s fine for a speaker at this price point.

To set them up you position them (against a wall/in a corner is fine, thanks to the front porting), plug your input source into your choice of socket/s (there’s a stereo minijack-to-2 x RCA lead provided), plug the power in, check the volume is down, then switch on…

In Use

Rather than test these in the Digital DJ Tips studio as I normally would, I set them up in my tiny home studio, because it is DJ/producers at home who these are primarily aimed at, so I thought it would be a fairer test.

When I’m producing at home, I spend most of my time doing it on headphones, for which I keep a noise cancelling pair (for when the kids/family are in the house) and a non-noise-cancelling pair (for when they’re in bed!). My use of speakers is limited to when I’m DJing, playing music, or producing music when the house is totally empty – which is rarely!

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That said, over the three weeks I auditioned these, I used them a lot. I can report that they are punchy and full sounding, have great bass, have a decent “sweet spot” where audio is optimum, and frankly they go far too loud for what I needed.

The headphones socket on the front is a good idea, although as my headphones are plugged permanently into my audio interface, I didn’t use it other than to test it. The volume control on the front is a smart move, too, although again, I tend to use the one on my audio interface. It did take a little while to get used to reaching around the back to grope for the on/off switch though.

As far as the DJ/producer switch goes, shoot me but I really didn’t notice an awful lot of difference. It is meant to give you a bit more bass when DJing and a flatter frequency response when producing, but really where you set this is going to be down to personal preference.

Many such speakers have lo/mid/hi boost/cut switches on the back to fine tune them to where you have them set up, and this seemed like a one-switch take on that. Just set it to where you think it sounds best and leave it, I’d say.

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Conclusion

The DM-40s were a popular speaker, and this is a good replacement. The volume and headphones controls on the front of the primary speaker are convenient, the three types of input equally so, and they’re overall well-built and good-sounding.

They’d be a suitable choice for DJ/producers working from home who maybe occasionally want to invite a few friends over for a dance. They’re certainly loud enough for a living room party. They’re quite boxy and deep, so just make sure you have enough room, especially if you want to set them up on a small desk.

Good value, good sound, good build quality – recommended!

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