Numark DM1090X

The DM1090X was a preamp/mixer manufactured by the Numark Corporation in 1999 and part of the professional disc jockey products range. It was a studio series professional DJ mixing console with two phono preamplifiers with RIAA equalisation for connecting a pair of record players. It had six line inputs, and one microphone input with bass and treble facility. The 5-band graphic equalizer had ±12 dB boost and cut facility, and the centre frequencies were at 63 Hz, 250 Hz, 1 kHz, 4 kHz, and 16 kHz. This was a large unit measuring 480 mm × 175 mm × 95 mm, with mass 3.5 kg.

Review

There is absolutely no way I could become a DJ, because firstly I do not own a shell-suit, nor like wearing baseball caps the wrong way round, however sound engineering is something that I understand well as I repair amplifiers and mixing desks at component level. I managed to get this preamp/mixer on eBay as it was going cheap, and all it needed was some cleaning and service and it was as good as new. I cleaned the sliders and pot with a good electrical cleaner, repaired the dry solder joints, and even upgraded the capacitors and op-amp ICs to improve the sound.

Most of the Numark equipment that I have seen seems to last, including this ancient mixing console from 1999. A great feature of this one is that I can connect two turntables to it – not for scratching purposes – but for testing out record players for comparison purposes. If you like mixing with CDs then you will be glad to know that this mixer also has the option to connect two CD players, which makes it very versatile. The sound quality of this unit was excellent, and the headphone output was the best when I connected my favourite pair of headphones. It has a lovely punchy sound and the graphic equalizer helps to improve the sound quality.

The headphone amplifier provides 0.5-watts output into 47-Ω coils, and there is a volume control as well.

I loved the cross-fader operation and the fact that it could be easily replaced. Somehow, Numark must have known that this component would take a bashing. I have often seen DJs prancing around slamming the cross-fader control this way and that. In this unit, the cross-fader was extremely loose, but still operational.

Price/eBay

These are still very useful to have and you do not need to be a DJ to own one. This model is an old one and the things to look out for are damaged controls, and slide potentiometers that are noisy and crackly. Mixing desks can be a nightmare to take apart for servicing, so ideally you need to avoid those. A unit in good working order can go for as little as forty pounds and sometimes double that on a good day.

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