plans for adding FLAC support to CDJ900/2000/nxs?

Technically speaking I think it would be very much possible, but from a marketing point of view it does not make sense because it would hurt (probably quite badly) the sales of the new CDJs, so I would not expect to see it ported to the old CDJs.

I disagree with Julia as I would not think the CDJ 2000NXS and the DJM 900NXS would still be produced.  It would make no sense to not discontinue them.

I also brought up getting some updates and was told they are not sure at this time but I just wanted to put it in the radar so we would be notified if they knew....

I'm pretty sure they'll be discontinued*, but I doubt we'll see support for FLAC on existing products due to the decoding chipsets they use. It would be cool if other functions trickle-down as a result, but I'm sure most users will be happy to get any new functions regardless.

(*Not an official statement on behalf of Pioneer.)

Fair statement Pulse :)

The point is that I have CDJs 2000 Nexus. If I wanted to have FLAC I would be forced to buy the new Nexus2. If they ported FLAC on my old Nexus then I would not buy a Nexus 2 and keep my old Nexus. 

Porting  the new features to an old model would cannibalize the sales of a new model because the owner of the old model would not buy the new model since they could get the same features for free. Pretty straightforward and basic marketing technique :)

I forgot to mention that I respectfully disagreed with your point :)

I guess where we see this a bit different is that I don't think the majority of nxs owners out there would actually buy the nxs2 only because it supports FLAC.  There is a few more items added to justify a new release, otherwise, it would have been a sw update.

Either way, as Pulse said, it looks like there is a hardware limitation.

I work in marketing in an evil mega-corporation and I tend to see the things from the point of view of an evil marketing marketing manager :D therefore I don't believe even remotely that the powerful chipset of the nexus cannot decode FLAC. 

Believe what you want, it couldn't do it before ...

from a technical view it's very easy to add flac Support and even hd flac Support.

for example the cdj2000 nxs main cpu is a renesas R5S77641N300BG this powerful Audio processing unit has absolutely no problems to handle hd flac files out of the box :-)

"Hardware limitations" is no Argument :-)

@Daniel > I recommend you submit your resume to Pioneer for consideration as an engineer.

Daniel's information is correct. The service manual of the CDJ confirms that the R5S77641N300BG is indeed used.

According to Renesas data sheets and manuals, this CPU is a 32 bit RISC, with a max clock of 324 MHz, and it can address up to 4 GB of memory. It has an FPU coprocessor that can handle 32 or 64 bit precision for floating point numbers. It can address 4 GB of memory.

It has also an on-board 2D GPU, so the CPU/FPU doesn't need to waste time to handle the display. Ethernet and USB 2.0 are also on board in the same chip,  and this frees up resources on the main bus between CPU and RAM.

Just for comparison...with a quick search I found on an electronic forum that somebody has run successfuly a FLAC decoder in 2009 on a PIC32MX340F512H microcontroller which compared to the Renesas CPU is like comparing a bicycle to a Porsche 911.

I couldn't find the CDJ2000 Nexus service manual on line, but only the older non Nexus manual. So if we look only at the CPU it seems that even the "ancient" CDJ2000 would have been able to support FLAC. The Nexus has most likely the same CPU or maybe a newer and even more powerful one.

@Julia > I also suggest you submit your resume to Pioneer, as it seems you are both excellent electrical engineers!

thx for the recommendation Pulse :-) but i'm already employed as an engineer here in germany :-)

but you don't have to be an engineer to read spec sheets from semiconductor manufacturer.

i think it's more a "Software/Firmware Limitation" from a technical view, but anyway... i can understand that it makes no sense to implement this on legacy Hardware, so no offense...

None taken, I applaud you guys for taking the time to dig into the technical specs and determining what can and can't be done with that processor, however there's more to a car than just an engine and I'm certain there is a reason (beyond marketing) that the engineers told me it's not possible with existing products.

I understand it would be fantastic to have all the bells and whistles of the new products on existing hardware, and with the world of computers we've come to expect this to be relatively true, but there are other limitations to consider (again, in addition to marketing) for the performance and reliability of existing products vs. new ones.

thx pulse for your Reply!

Have to agree that it would be in Pioneer's interests to get support for compressed HD quality media into as many players as possible otherwise we'll just keep using AIFF/WAV as most DJ's need to rely on the lowest common denominator model.

There are some precedents for Pioneer implementing "upgraded" features into older players such as HFS support into the 900s for example which I rely on every day.

(I truly believe it also reinforces the perception that buying Pioneer is a long term investment vs a short term fad which again helps increase Pioneer's foothold)