cknapper Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 Hi all, Hope you all had a nice christmas and are ready for new year. ive been asked to source some moving heads / mirrors for my other venue. I only have a small amount of money around £2,500 and I need 4. I could go up to £3,000 but if I can as close to my target as possible. This if for a theatre venue and not a club or DJ so need them to be as bright as a Mac 250+. Hope this makes sence, I search the net but the boss doesnt like what ive chucked out as of yet. Thanking you in advance. Carl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benweblight Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 Second hand kit an option? You may get more for your money that way, and even then your are asking quite a lot for that budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HobitLight Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 This is one on Thomann. It seems to be quite similar to a Martin MAC 250. Stairville MH 575 S Moving Head It doesn't have an Iris but it does quite a lot for what it's price is. The bulb isn't included though so you'll need to get some! Hope this helps! Happy New Year! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 Speak to the guys at usedlighting.co.uk With that budget there seems little point in buying new stuff as you could only afford DJ Dave type equipment and used professional stuff with plenty of life left in it is within budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tokm Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 Second J Pearce's comments & recommendation! UsedLightings got a load of 500s going for 900quid (ex vat of course) a pop. Plenty of gobos & an Iris.. Much brighter than a traditional mac250 due to it being lamped with a 575w MSR rather than a 250w MSD type lamp, thought it is a larger & heavier unit. Basically the 500s are the next step up from the 250s, so why not go for them if you can.. you also get a free lamp & flightcases per pair! If your set on something small (i.e. a 250 sized unit) the only real options going to be something like a High End Studiospot 250. Its the only 250w fixture with an iris AFAIK.. As J Pearce said, stay away from the DJ sorts of gear.. While the fixture HobitLight recommended is admittedly more of a 'big boys/DJ' fixture compared to some of the cheap & cheerful DJ units around, its still poorly equiped for theatre use. First off, as he mentioned, there's no iris, theres also no way of diffusing/frosting the beam & no dimmer (IIRC & according to the specs').. Both very important features for any fixture being used in a theatrical environment to have and in general, it just won't be upto the same standards interms of the build & parts quality that a mac or something a little more 'brand name' will have to it. Just my thoughts... HTH. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon T Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 Im not too sure on the price, but the new Clay Paky Alpha SPOT 300 could be an option. Personally have not used that model but if its older brothers in the 575 and 1200 range are anything to go by they will be brilliant! hth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trunker Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 What about the I-solution 575MSD? They have an iris, seperate colour and gobo wheels and a 'prism' effect. Fully DMX contollable and are priced at roughly £850 from 10outof10. Might be a bit above your budget, but if you want new these may do for the price range you have. Or try the smaller wattage ones the 250MSD, but they have no iris, and come at a price of £650 each. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HobitLight Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 Very good point tokm! If I'd have realised that there wasn't a dimmer I wouldn't have said anything about it! That's sort of needed in theatre otherwise they would snap to BO instead of fading! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamtastic3 Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 Very good point tokm! If I'd have realised that there wasn't a dimmer I wouldn't have said anything about it! That's sort of needed in theatre otherwise they would snap to BO instead of fading! Hobitlight and Tokm,The Stairville unit from Thomann MUST have a dimmer attribute surely. The fixture has up to 14 channels and therefore one of these channels must be a dimmer channel. In fact, a 575W fixture of this kind occupying up to 14 channels will probably have seperate dimmer and strobe channels. I'd be very suprised if Stairville (ok not one of the bigger names over here) would design a 575W discharge fixture with over 10 channels and still not give you a 0% to 100% dimming channel. I would be more concerned about what the noise output is like with this fixture compared to a Mac500. I'm going by a certain amount of knowledge/sense and how many channels the fixture has here folks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 If you buy brand new, you get a proper year (or 3 via Thomann) guarantee. If you buy secondhand cheap then it might be worthwhile - Spending over a grand on a piece of fairly ancient kit, that has probably been retired by it's first owner on the grounds of economics seems to me rather a waste of money. If second hand isn't cheap - and to be honest, a grand isn't cheap for a 500 - then I'd give it a miss. A 30 day warranty on a piece of kit costing a grand seems a bit risky - I'd spend the same money on a new, (perhaps inferior) fully guaranteed piece of kit. The generics I've bought off them have given excellent service - but the complexity and unknown service history of an individual unit put it in a different league. Rather tlike buying a car with 100,000 miles on the clock and treating the MOT pass slip as an indication of reliability and quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tokm Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 The Stairville unit from Thomann MUST have a dimmer attribute surely. The fixture has up to 14 channels and therefore one of these channels must be a dimmer channel. In fact, a 575W fixture of this kind occupying up to 14 channels will probably have separate dimmer and strobe channels. I'd be very surprised if Stairville (ok not one of the bigger names over here) would design a 575W discharge fixture with over 10 channels and still not give you a 0% to 100% dimming channel.Damn.. if only I had my stack of avo profile disks here, I'd pull up the fixture profile I had made for this unit and we'd find out once and for all. For some reason It's not on the website, just checked :( Admittedly it was a while ago when I came across this fixture, but that's why I said IIRC.. Nothing came up above the wheels when the dimmer attribute button was pressed and the shutter channel merly controlled the open or closed position and strobing/pulse speed. Another thing from memory was it seemed to have a fair amount of 16bit channels, which might account for some of the channels... Which to be fair gives it a tick in the 'good for theatre' box, but without a dimmer, its still pretty useless for theatre. Concert/Gig's... I could live without a dimmer if needed. Off to tonights party now, Happy New Year everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nothingatall666 Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 The Stairville unit from Thomann MUST have a dimmer attribute surely. The fixture has up to 14 channels and therefore one of these channels must be a dimmer channel. In fact, a 575W fixture of this kind occupying up to 14 channels will probably have separate dimmer and strobe channels. I'd be very surprised if Stairville (ok not one of the bigger names over here) would design a 575W discharge fixture with over 10 channels and still not give you a 0% to 100% dimming channel. the STAIRVILLE MH 575 S does have a 'dimmer' but its from the 2 blade shutter, now I'm not much of a lighting boy so I don't know if using a shutter is the standard way of dimming. I own a stairville, its lovely for its price but its just the odd things that it doesn't have. like prism rotation and a frost.the unit is slightly noisy too, but in a concert environment it would be fine. I would take off the shell and post some pic's but my mate has it at his college. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tokm Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 Well I stand corrected then! Looking at it, I can see why the fixture profile would have the dimming part on the shutter channel if its an all in one thing (no separate dimmer/shutter wheel). It would have been one or the other and they picked the latter. It also didn't have any range values for dimming.. well I assume it didn't as no dimmer %'s appeared for it, just 'open' & strobe speed values came up above the wheel.. Before anyone asks 'surely you noticed it didn't dim when you were using it'. The answer is no, I wasn't the LD/Op', just put the gig in/up, pre-patched it all at home prior to the event, shoved the disk into the desk & loaded up the 'show', labeled the desk, said there you go.. Anyways, while its great to know this fixture does dim (not considering buying a pair or two!), unless the OP/his boss can live without an iris, its still not useful for him is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnhuson Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 Looking at it, I can see why the fixture profile would have the dimming part on the shutter channel if its an all in one thing (no separate dimmer/shutter wheel). One thing I feel is worth clearing up, just because a fixture has seperate dimmer/shutter channels, doesn't mean they are two seperate functions. A number of fixtures on the market (more spot than wash) have combined dimmer/shutter blades despite being controlled from seperate channels. The disco fixtures to watch out for are those that have black out on colour or gobo wheels. Then they really don't have a dimmer, it's on or off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 I am probably wrong but doesn't the MAC 250 Entour use a shutter for dimming. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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