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The state of small moving heads, Spring 2016


Bryson

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So, I'm looking at buying a small package of moving heads to jazz up the music events we do. Now, I'm old, so to me "small moving head" means a Mac 250. But I'm clearly behind the times.

 

So, here's my questions:

 

  1. Who should I be looking at? Martin, Robe...who else? I've always recoiled in horror at the mention of Chauvet, but several people I know say the Chauvet Pro stuff is actually pretty good these days. Who else is worth considering?
  2. Budget will of course be an issue. So, should I go for 6-8 cheaper fixtures or 4 more fully-featured ones? I'm not going to try and make these do the theatre shows (I have plenty of S4s and I-Cues for that sort of thing) so subtlety isn't really a requirement.
  3. The Martin Rush stuff (especially the MH7 Hybrid) looks interesting. Any experiences of that? Would I be better off gritting my teeth and buying Quantums instead?
  4. Wash vs spot? Buy a mixture? Just spots, given that I have LED pars and Bars for colour washes?

 

I'm looking to spend about $20-25k. (That's about 12000 of your puny English Pounds.)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I can't say a bad word against the Chauvet Rogue gear, stunning features and light output for the cost and the rubberised exterior seems to hold up against the rigours of the job a bit better than standard plastic finish.

 

Having spec'd the full complement of Rogue wash, spot and beams units for my old venue and been very happy with them, I will be looking very closely at the new Maverick range when the purse strings are opened at my new venue.

 

The only word to the wise about the R2 beam head - make sure you have plenty of height - I melted a length of Harlequin dancefloor on the first programming day when I went for a cup of tea and left the dimmer open and heads pointing down as per usual practice, they were at a 6m trim as well!!!!

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Showtec Phantom75 LED Spot.

 

I use them all the time!

 

phantom spot 75

 

have a look

I too have used them on small corporates. They're pretty good (especial for the price point), but note the manual focus. I believe if you go further up the range you can get motorised focus, though I haven't used them.

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I must admit to really being impressed with the cheapish Chinese 90W LED movers. They turned out to be very reliable - and for the budget, you get lots, and lots looks damn good. They have been more reliable than my old Mac 250s, and the 575W discharges I got from Stage Elecs. I can get plenty on a bar because they're light, and I've bought two batches now, and if I needed more, I'd have no hesitation buying some more. Gobo changes are not as nice as the macs, but now I've got a useful set in them all, I'm very happy with the results. My demands are quite low really - and these have really low running costs and do the job.
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If you're looking for something along the lines of a Mac 250, then the Robe Pointe is probably a good bet. Has zoom, linear and circular prisms, rotating and static gobo wheel. Only downside is the range of colours - no "CTB" or Lavender or pale pink or anything. However, a nice small hybrid light. Many rental companies also have them which means getting hold of spares/additional units is easy.

 

Can't think of anything CP or Martin have in the same "ball park". Mythos and Quantum Profile are both a bit bigger/heavier/more expensive.

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