Hub Fail

Hi people.

So I have an issue with my DJ set up and I’m not sure where to go with what’s causing my problems.

I’m currently using a 2022 full spec MacBook Pro 16”

Serato Dj pro

Sandisk extreme pro 2TB ssd V2 portable drive with my music on.

I started at another club a couple of years ago and I set up as follows, pioneer DJM900nxs into right port.

External drive into top left port (cheaper sandisk model than what I’m using now) Cheap eBay Hub into lower left port 2x pioneer CDj2000nxs into hub.

It was going well for a few weeks until one night the players just would not link at the start.

The mixer was fine, but there was no control from the players as they would not link at all.

Not realising it may be the hub, I took my laptop back to Apple, who did all the testing and a fresh install and could not fault it.

I didn’t install any antivirus and disabled everything I could.

The tech guy at the club said it was my cheap hub, so I bought a more expensive one.

I read on the pioneer site they advise to use an external powered hub so I did that.

I got all new leads from local office shop.

All was good for a while again until I started to get sound issues whenever I touched anything on the CDJ’s. Pops, crackles, distortion and sound fading away.

I thought this to be odd as the mixer is the sound card, not the players.

The tech guy said it was my usb hub again and it’s because I powered it, I shouldn’t have done that. The hub had failed again. And now don’t work.

That night I was stuffed and didn’t have my USB’s as I lent them out, or even another hub so another Dj lent me his usb and the night went on. However, the whole set froze that night too using the usb and had to re start both players.

Anyway, I spent a lot of money on a decent USB hub again, all new Dj tech tools cables and the new extreme pro external drive.

Updated all the pioneer kit, the laptop, Serato.

All has been great for well over 14 months. Switching between laptop and usb every night on several occasions no issues.

But then Friday a new Dj came in for a hour trial to start.

I set up all my stuff before he started and waited for him to finish.

When he had done I switched on my laptop, linked the kit, and was mixing in my track from Serato to his playing usb track then bang, everything froze and the CDJ’s was not linked.

His track was still playing but both players was not responding.

After a few mins of testing and fiddling, it had blown another hub.

Put a hub in from another Dj, and my night went on as normal.

So now I’m on my 4th hub, with this old pioneer kit.

Now this is the kicker. The CDJ’s get swapped out a lot as they fail, play button, cue button etc etc.

So it’s hard to trace if it’s a particular player.

What I would like to do is prove it’s not my MacBook. The finger obviously gets pointed at me.

All the hubs still power up, but nothing passes through them when connected. No players, no drives, no usb, no controller.

Dead.

If it was a power spike, would they not power up? What way does the power travel through the hub? From my Mac through the hub to the player or from the player through the hub to the Mac?

How can I diagnose this issue and prove it’s one thing?

I can’t see 3 hubs from 3 different manufactures being at fault. So it’s either the player, the Mac, or Serato right?

Please help. Thanks