Intro

The Omnis-Duo is an extremely portable standalone DJ unit with a built-in battery, with a claimed 5 hour battery life. It’s got a familiar 2 decks + mixer and touch screen layout, finished in a color which is referred to as “indigo”.

It’s got a modest size and weight (about 10 lb.), and its minimalist design with short, stubby controls makes for easy backpack transport. It has Bluetooth input and output (a first for standalone DJ systems) with some interesting tricks. Other sources are USB-A stick, SD card, Rekordbox performance mode or Serato Lite (soon) via USB-C, or wirelessly via CloudDirectPlay.

The Omnis-Duo competes directly with other battery-powered DJ devices on the market, such as the Denon DJ PRIME Go and the Numark Mixstream Pro GO, though it comes in at a higher price tag ($1499). In today’s review, we’ll talk about all the features of this new device, compare it to the
competition, and discuss who it’s for. For a deep dive with examples and visuals, please watch
the review video above.

Features & Layout

The Omnis-Duo features a very simple, straight-forward design like you’d find in a compact Pioneer DJ controller. A simple, minimalist design hides tons of functionality behind the touch screen. It’s got a 2-channel mixer section in the middle, and the trim and color (or Filter) knobs are off to the side (to save height). Your headphones cueing is also off to the side, instead of above the faders, which I think is a tidy way to do that.

The faders feel pretty decent. There’s nothing particularly special about them, meaning they aren’t Magvel Fader Pros, but they certainly do the job. The pads have a little bit of give to them, and they have a nice rubbery coating. They have a definite clicky response so you know when you’re pushing them. The jog wheels are really nice. They rotate nicely and smoothly. They feel really good in the same way that the FLX4 did, which I know is a much cheaper product, but I do mean this as a compliment. They move smoothly with very little resistance and don’t make any noise. Pretty good!

The device features my favorite kind of looping setup. The single knob encoder, which you push in to engage or disengage loops, and then twist to the left or right to make the loop longer or shorter is a plus in my book. Overall build quality seems solid. I have no complaints there. All the inputs feel pretty good, including the jog wheels. Use with confidence. Inside the device is a 47.52 Wh built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery, with 5 hours claimed life + eco mode, which lowers your brightness and turns off wireless functions. The GUI doesn’t match any Pioneer DJ products you are currently familiar with, but it does have a very straightforward (if not slightly cramped) interface that is easy to use.

Ports & Connections

USB Type-A drives and SD cards can be plugged straight into the OMNIS-DUO, as well as a PC/Mac via the USB Type-C terminal if you want to use rekordbox Performance mode. The Omnis-Duo supports Wi-Fi, but shockingly, streaming services are not currently supported. So, no TIDAL or Beatport Link, etc. which gives a huge advantage to the competition. You can use Pioneer’s CloudDirectPlay for online access to your music library.

Bluetooth Features

The Omnis-Duo supports Bluetooth as an input source, but also, as an output destination. You can connect to a Bluetooth speaker and send it your main output, for a completely wireless experience.
Using Bluetooth in this way does introduce noticeable lag (see video above). AlphaTheta’s solution to this is the WAVE-EIGHT speaker, which uses a much lower latency wireless protocol. The WAVE-EIGHT works with any source, not just the Omnis-Duo.

A very interesting, if not “hacky” feature is Input Playback. This is hard to describe, so again, I recommend watching the video above. Basically, you can use your input source as a live audio recording, and it will immediately start loading into the selected deck. So if you play something on your phone from Spotify, YouTube, etc. the waveform begins loading in realtime on the Omnis-Duo.

This is a pretty fascinating feature, but it kinda falls apart when you try to think of a real use case for it. (Imagine taking a request, but having the person pair their phone, play an entire song, hope they don’t get any notifications during that time, etc.)

AlphaTheta vs. Pioneer DJ

For whatever reason, it has been decided to start branding products under the AlphaTheta name, Pioneer DJ’s parent company. There was some early speculation that the Pioneer DJ name might be going away entirely, but they company has clarified: that isn’t true. I’m not sure what the line of demarcation is between the two lines. It’s all based on rekordbox, and if the distinction was “standalone devices”, the Opus-Quad would’ve been released as an AlphaTheta. But it wasn’t. I don’t yet see any distinction between product class or target price, or a logical distinction of any kind, quite yet. So it remains to be seen what the strategy is with this breakout. I’d be interested in your thoughts and speculation in the comments below, because as of right now, I’m not sure what to make of it.

Wrap Up

And so, we’re left with the question of “who is this for?”.

The promo videos released for the Omnis Duo present this as a “take anywhere” DJ system. Bring it to a hotel party, have a few friends over and mix a set in the kitchen, bring it to the cookout and connect it to a wireless speaker, and so on. It has a simple (if not exactly pro-looking) design. But it does have XLR outputs, booth connections, and Pioneer’s class-leading FX. It has some pro features, but it’s not really “pro gear”. It doesn’t have RGB backlighting, or really, much visual feedback at all that isn’t provided by the screen… which has its own issues. And yet, they are charging a significant premium over the competition.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? If the Omnis-Duo had been released in December 2019, we would have all been shocked and amazed, and maybe even impressed at the price. But the fact of the matter is that the PRIME Go came out in January 2020 for a thousand bucks. Save for the Bluetooth output (which is admittedly pretty cool), and maybe some battery life, there’s a strong incentive to consider the cheaper options.

If you are invested in using streaming services with your DJing, you’re flat out of luck, unless you want to use this with your laptop as a DJ controller. This will work fine, but I’d just suggest a DDJ-FLX4 for under $300, at that point. Now, it might sound like I’m being harsh on the Omnis-Duo, and I honestly don’t mean to be. The fact of the matter is: it’s a great portable DJ device that does exactly what it sets out to do. But, in this newly competitive space of battery-powered DJ gear, I don’t see one “killer feature” that justifies the price difference. It’s Pioneer tax.

Some people are simply going to prefer to exist in a Rekordbox environment and will choose this regardless. Hell, that might describe me, if I were in the market for something battery-powered.

Some people will prefer the smart and simplistic UI design, some people can’t live without Pioneer FX, and some people will just like that it’s a fun blue color. And, I think those are all fine reasons to consider the Omnis-Duo. It’s a sturdy, simple, but powerful standalone DJ system that lets you take your rekordbox library literally anywhere!

Your Turn

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