The Lowdown
The DJM-V5 takes the essence of AlphaTheta’s massive 6-channel V10 mixer and condenses it into a more manageable 3-channel unit that’s 30% smaller. At £1,739, it’s aimed squarely at techno DJs who layer music and want something more creative than standard club mixers, delivering that warm V10 sound with thoughtfully streamlined features that make it less intimidating – and a lot cheaper – than its bigger brother.
Don’t have our latest DJ gear guide? Click here to grab your free copy
Video Review
First Impressions / Setting up
Opening the box, the V5 immediately feels more spacious and less overwhelming than the DJM-V10 it’s based on. The build quality is exactly what you’d expect at this price – solid, weighty at 8kg, with that premium feel. The three channels with their long-throw faders (borrowed from the V10-LF variant) immediately indicate this isn’t your typical club mixer – there’s no crossfader at all, for instance.
Setting up is the same as ever with this type of digital mixer. You’ve got your standard phono and line inputs for all three channels round the back, plus the Pro DJ Link Ethernet connection. The USB-C connection (finally, no more USB-B!) connects to your computer for Serato or Rekordbox use. I liked simplified input switching – just line, phono, or USB per channel up top, without the complex external effects routing of the V10 that probably scared more people than it attracted.
The rear panel overall is sensible rather than overwhelming. XLR master outputs, balanced TRS booth outputs, RCA record outs, and the send/return jacks for external effects are all present and accounted for. They’ve kept one microphone input (down from two on the V10), which is probably enough for most users. Initial power-on reveals a small but functional display that shows BPM and effect information – nothing fancy, but it does the job.
In Use
This is where the V5 really starts to make sense. The sound quality is pristine – it’s got that same clinical-but-warm character as both the V10 and the DJM-A9, with 96kHz/64-bit processing and high-quality ESS Technology converters ensuring everything sounds gorgeous. But it’s the workflow that – if you’re this type of DJ – I suspect you’ll take to nicely.
EQ, effects, and workflow
The four-band EQs with two mid-bands are carried over from the V10, and they’re brilliant for the surgical frequency work that techno mixing demands. I found myself really appreciating the extra control when removing specific frequencies from layered tracks. The compressors on each channel are a particular highlight – they’re useful for getting multiple sources to sit together properly in a mix. Turn them up and you get that squashed, pumping sound; leave them subtle and they just help everything gel together. These were one of my favourite features on the V10, and I’m delighted they made the cut here.
DJ like a pro using ANY gear: The Complete DJ Course
The effects implementation shows thought about what DJs actually use. The beat effects from the V10 are completely gone, and honestly, I don’t miss them. What you get instead are six Send effects – Short Delay, Reverb, Shimmer, Tape Echo, Ping Pong, and Echo Verb. The implementation is clever: effects that need to sync to the beat (the last three) have this impressive clicking mechanism on the time knob that lets you feel the exact beat positions. It’s proper engineering – you can feel the mechanical indents as you turn, though it does make an audible click when you switch it on and off, which took me a second to work out what was happening!
The new XPF (cross-pass) filter is fascinating. It takes out the mids while leaving both the highs and the bass intact. It means you can filter aggressively without losing the power in the room – the bass keeps thumping while the mids disappear. It’s the kind of feature that makes you wonder why nobody thought of it before.
I do have mixed feelings about the master mix level control being a fader rather than a knob. Functionally, it probably is better – you get more precise control over the return level of your effects. But aesthetically, it looks a bit wrong, like someone grabbed the wrong fader cap from the parts bin. The fader top looks different from the three channel faders, and it just seems a bit off to me. Still, that’s a minor gripe about something that actually works well in practice.
Sign up to Tuesday Tips
Free newsletter Your weekly digest of the latest training, gear reviews, industry news, and exclusive tips and tricks to help you stay ahead in your DJing.
We collect, use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Connectivity and missing features
The Multi I/O implementation is spot-on. With just a single USB-C cable, you can plug in an iPad running an RMX-1000, your phone running DJM-REC for recording sets, or AlphaTheta’s new RMX-Ignite unit. The sends and returns work as you’d expect for analogue effects units too. It’s flexible without being overwhelming – a theme of this review.
SonicLink wireless headphone monitoring is built in, and while I couldn’t test the upcoming NFC pairing feature (those headphones aren’t out until later this year), the regular pairing with HDJ-F10 headphones worked flawlessly with the usual imperceptible latency. We like that it’s built into the mixer rather than requiring a separate transmitter, just like the XDJ-AZ.
One thing that’s missing from the V10 is the three-band isolator, which is a shame. Those are lovely for really dramatic mixing moves, and while the four-band EQ does the job, it’s not quite the same as having dedicated kill knobs. But again, they had to lose something to make this smaller and cheaper, and most people probably won’t miss them.
Pro DJ Link integration is seamless as you’d expect, with Link Cue letting you preview tracks from CDJs before loading them. The ability to save and load your settings via USB is handy for club use, though honestly, the mixer is intuitive enough that I found myself not really needing to adjust much from the defaults, and I suspect many more of these will end up in home studios than in installations anyway.
Conclusion
The DJM-V5 succeeds in distilling what made the V10 special into something far more approachable. It feels less like AlphaTheta trying to tick every possible box and more like they actually understood what techno DJs loved about the V10 and focused on preserving those elements. The sound quality is impeccable, those compressors are useful in a way that some other esoteric mixer features aren’t, and details like the clicking time knob for beat-synced effects and the forthcoming touch-to-pair wireless headphones are, well, just cool.
At £1,739, it’s obviously not cheap, and you need to be sure this style of mixing suits you. If you’re a scratch DJ or someone who loves using beat effects and crossfader tricks, this absolutely isn’t for you – look at more standard or scratch-oriented mixers instead. But if you’re into long blends, layering multiple sources, and the kind of mixing where you’re using your inputs as parts of a new whole, this makes a compelling case for itself.
Read this next: 8 Things To Consider When Choosing A DJ Mixer
Just as the PLAYdifferently Model 1 (around £3,000) is an obvious alternative for the V10, so the smaller Model 1.4 (around £2,200) is for the V5. Those offer a fully analogue signal path and even more esoteric workflow choices – brilliant if you want something truly different, but even more of an acquired taste than the V5. For most DJs who want something special that also keeps digital’s bells and whistles, the V5 hits a sweet spot – and it’s a sweet spot that perhaps the undeniably impressive V10 missed by trying to be too many things to too many people.
In short, the V5 feels confident and focused in a way the V10 never quite managed. It knows exactly what it wants to be and executes that vision almost flawlessly. We think it’s a great creative mixer.
