40 year old here who once had a passion for DJ'ing. I had a pair of Gemini decks & Numark mixer then was lucky enough to have a pair of Technics SL1210's for a while. This is going back 20 odd years. I still have 2 boxes of Vinyl. I am wanting to get back into mixing but boy it all appears to have changed! I want to get my 12 year old son into it too. This question has probably been asked a few times but what route am I best going down? I gather controllers are cheaper but less like a turntable set up being fed through a PC or laptop? I am not sure if you need to beat match on these & this is what I particularly enjoyed doing on decks. I doubt you can even sctratch on these with the format been digital?

Can anyone give me a quick break down in layman terms the functions of CDJ's & controllers vs good old decks? Maybe, I would be better just getting a pair of decks again?