A DJ line from a Bologna pro-audio maker.

Mixars is an Italian DJ brand, and a young one. It was started not by a DJ but by a professional-audio company. An archived 2016 version of its website says AEB Industriale, founded in Bologna in 1974, makes professional audio under the dBTechnologies brand, and that “in January 2016 dBTechnologies decided to enter in the DJ Market with a new lineup MIXARS inside their new category dB-J Technologies.”

AEB Industriale belongs to the RCF Group. Front of House magazine, reporting the group’s purchase of the American loudspeaker maker EAW in September 2018, described RCF Group as based in Reggio Emilia and Bologna and operating “under the companies RCF and AEB Industriale (dB Technologies).” RCF itself dates from 1949 in Reggio Emilia, where it began as Radio Cine Forniture, making microphones, amplifiers and loudspeaker drivers, Italian Wikipedia says; it adds that RCF Group planned a return to the Milan stock exchange in September 2019 and withdrew a month later, citing market conditions. Mixars calls itself “part of the RCF Group” and “an independent subsidiary,” and its website gives its address in Crespellano, part of Valsamoggia in the province of Bologna — the same address dBTechnologies gives for AEB Industriale.

The brand went public at trade shows. Its 2016 news pages invited visitors to the NAMM Show in Anaheim, held from 21 to 24 January 2016, to see its “brand new products,” and to Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt that April, where it promised to “introduce our complete series,” with some products also shown in Musikmesse’s DJ area.

Battle mixers and Serato.

The first catalogue was built around scratch DJs and Serato’s software. The DUO was a two-channel battle mixer for Serato DJ with eight RGB pads, a USB hub and a built-in soundcard, using a mini-Innofader crossfader in its 2016 form. The CUT was a plain, metal-cased two-channel scratch mixer that the 2016 site called “the definitive Battle mixer” and “a Mini-Tank.” The LTA was a high-torque direct-drive turntable with a straight arm, pitch ranges up to ±50 per cent and two outputs, so that one deck could feed two mixers in a battle; the 2016 site listed a 16-pole, three-phase brushless motor, a 332 mm die-cast aluminium platter and speeds of 33, 45 and 78 rpm. The early range also listed the MXR-2 and MXR-4 mixers, MXH-22 headphones and an MXM-5 studio monitor.

Reviews were favourable. Phil Morse of Digital DJ Tips, reviewing the DUO in September 2016 at US$683, called it “totally metal” and said it “feels precision made,” recommending it to scratch DJs who wanted Serato’s DVS without “breaking the bank.”

In January 2017 Mixars announced three more products — the PRIMO controller, the UNO mixer and the four-channel QUATTRO — along with its own Galileo crossfaders, which it says its Italian research department developed with the British crossfader maker Pro X Fade. The QUATTRO, a Serato DJ mixer with two USB ports and 16 RGB pads, reached shops in January 2018, the company said; its brand coordinator, Tobias Noetzel, called it the “missing link” in the market for professional four-channel mixers. Digital DJ Tips reviewed the PRIMO, its first controller, in September 2019 at US$499, saying Mixars “has built itself on making hardware that over-delivers on features,” and the QUATTRO in October 2019 at US$999, recommending it while finding its stock crossfader not good enough for scratching.

Design and documentation.

Two groups dominate DJ equipment. Pioneer DJ left Pioneer Corporation in 2014; its parent, AlphaTheta, has been owned since 2020 by the Japanese holding company Noritsu, according to English Wikipedia. inMusic Brands, of Cumberland, Rhode Island, owns Numark, Denon DJ and Rane, which it bought in 2016.

The makers here work around that pair. Reloop is a brand of Global Distribution GmbH & Co. KG of Münster, Germany, its imprint says. Ecler was founded in Barcelona in 1965 and, by its own account, was acquired by the Fordahl Capital group in 2014; it labels its products “Made in Barcelona.” Mixars calls itself an independent subsidiary of Italy’s RCF Group, run from Valsamoggia, near Bologna.

Two are older names that stopped. Rodec, of Belgium, says its production paused in 2014 and that it returned in 2022 under Tom De Ridder, its chief executive since 2021; its website names TDR Media BV of Leuven. Vestax, the Tokyo company founded by Hidesato Shiino in 1977, entered bankruptcy proceedings in December 2014, Teikoku Databank reported.

One has joined a giant. Stanton, the American phono-cartridge name built up by Walter Stanton, passed to Gibson in 2011 and to inMusic in 2020, according to English Wikipedia; its website now calls it part of “the inMusic family of brands.”

Algoriddim, the Munich maker of the djay app, makes software, not hardware; it says partners including Reloop and Pioneer DJ build controllers for it.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

What the website shows.

The current website lists the UNO, DUO MkII, CUT MkII and QUATTRO mixers, the PRIMO controller, the LTA and STA turntables, the MXH-22 headphones and the Galileo crossfaders, with the original DUO marked as discontinued. The DUO MkII uses a Galileo Essential crossfader, which the company says is made in Japan; the UNO uses the contactless Kallisto version.

Where the mixers themselves are made is not stated. Neither the current site nor the archived 2016 and 2017 versions we checked say where Mixars hardware is manufactured, so we do not guess; the “Made in Japan” line applies only to the Galileo Essential fader. The research claim is the company’s own: it describes the Galileo series as “developed from scratch by our Italian R&D department.”

The website has been quieter than the hardware. Its news page’s most recent post is from June 2019, a PRIMO firmware update, while its support page carries firmware files uploaded as recently as April 2023. That is a record of what the site shows, not evidence about the company’s plans.

One domain trap: rcfgroup.com is not RCF’s website — when we checked in October 2026 it redirected to a domain-sale page; RCF publishes at rcf.it.

For a design guide, Mixars shows how an established pro-audio group can launch a DJ brand under a separate name. Compare Rane, the battle-mixer maker, and Serato, whose software the Mixars range was built around. For this guide we use battle black, steel grey and a pad red with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Mixars’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.