AlphaTheta pivots from Pioneer DJ with high-end rotary mixer

AlphaTheta, the parent brand that owns Pioneer DJ, has announced the release of its first ever mixer. Euphonia is a rotary mixer, which means that it uses rotary dials to mix between channels instead of faders.

Euphonia is a hybrid digital/ analogue 4-channel mixer built around a transformer circuit developed in collaboration with Rupert Neve Designs, which AlphaTheta tells us is tuned specifically for the unit, adding harmonics and culminating in a "glossy and energetic" sound.

The mixer is equipped with high-quality 32-bit A/D and D/A converters and uses 96kHz/64-bit floating point processing in its DSP, which powers a number of digital effects including reverb, tape echo, and delay. External effects can be hooked up with the help of the Send/Return section.

AlphaTheta is making a big deal of the mixer's elastomer-coated rotary dials, which have been specially designed to provide intuitive and precise control, and will vary in resistance depending on how fast you turn them; their volume curves have also been fine-tuned in response to feedback from DJs.

Euphonia's interface is split-level, with the top of the unit featuring a 3-band master isolator section with Boost Send buttons for applying effects, alongside a display AlphaTheta has dubbed the Energy Visualizer. Unlike a traditional VU meter, the display features a needle for each of the mixer's channels and a spectrum analyser for the master channel.

The remainder of the unit is taken up by controls for the mixer's four channels, which showcase a design that's closer to that of Pioneer's DJM mixers than it would be with a traditional rotary mixer.

Connectivity-wise, Euphonia is well-equipped, with four RCA outputs at both line and phono level, four coaxial digital inputs, and XLR and 1/4" TRS mic inputs. We have an XLR master output, 1/4" TRS booth output, and RCA output for recording, along with two headphone outputs, 1/4" and 3.5mm. There are also two 1/4" TRS sends and returns and a USB-C port for hooking up with Rekordbox, Traktor and Serato.

Euphonia is priced at £3,249, estimated shipment early July.