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Chauvet 4bar system? Anyone know anything?


Norton666

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I just stumbled across this and it looks VERY interesting. Im sick and tired of setting up our light rig and this might be just the solution. We have 16 Par 56s total and lately , weve been getting so lazy that were just taking a 4-6 of them out , setting them up on T-bars at the front of the stage and plugging them in. Im not real familiar with LED lighting. How do the brightness specs look on this 4 bar? I would buy 2 of them , one for each side of the stage. Am I understanding correctly , that there would only be 1 cable connecting the two T-bars and thats it!!?? Any help is greatly appreciated.

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I'm interested in the Chauvet 4bar when they release it. Just today I was looking around on google and I'm pretty sure this same unit has already been out for a while in the UK under the name "KAM LED PARBAR". I could be wrong but it looks like it's the same exact product.






 

 

 

What about this? I noticed the statement "when they come out" and thought they were not out yet. From this, it looks like they are, or are these something different?

 

http://www.pssl.com/Chauvet-4-Bar-DMX-LED-Wash-Light-System

 

 

EDIT! My bad...I just re-read the site and it says Available March 30th. My apologies.

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Got my 4 bar setup and running! Probably one of the 1st ones to be delivered here in the USA.

 

First the bad, or at least so so. The light shells themselves are completely plastic which I sort of expected. However each light has 4 screws holding on a front trim piece by each corner, that does nothing more than hold a thin clear plastic protective plate and maybe help to brace the assembly. At least half of the screw points had hairline cracks where either the screws were overtightened during assembly and/or the whole unit took a hit during shipping. That said, I pulled each cover off, put a little hobby grade superglue and glue accelerator (hardener) on each crack from the backside of the cover on the corners and all is well. I then remounted the covers and tighened each screw delicately. Keep in mind the unit over all is pretty solid, but the light shells themselves are a bit delicate. Luckily none of the units were cracked at the side wingnut areas at all, and the small hairline cracks I did note were not really stress points other than holding on the clear covers underneath. Truly the lights would work and mount up fine without the front trim covers at all, but they help the looks. If I had bought the unit at a local store I probably would have returned it and swapped it out, but I need this unit for some gigs coming up and after my little repair you just can't tell. I wouldn't be suprised if a few of these get damaged in the field or in shipping and Chauvet may have to stock replacement shells. I don't think they would be that expensive as the shells are only two parts and not much to them.

 

The good, and great. The lights are darn bright! I've never owned LEDs (but owned x8 500 watt pars back in the 80-90s) but they are quite impressive and as expected hardly any detectable warmth at all. Not all that wide a throw, but MUCH wider than say a Chauvet Ledsplash Jr. and way WAY brighter. Each light is FULL of big 10mm LEDs with barely any PC board showing. I doubt you could fit in any more LEDs on the boards if you tried. The colors are nice, though when all are ON the white is a slightly more in the blue direction blend wise. The little gig case for the light bar and pars is decent, and form fitted inside so it doesn't move inside the case. The stand bag is fairly lightweight but decent enough. The included lighting stand is ok. The supplied power cord is quite short, but the foot controller cable is much appreciated much longer length. Interestingly there are 2 slight differences in the hardware than some of the pics the dealers are showing. First the controller has 3 buttons, not 4. They apparently dropped the "hold" button. The controller is very solid, though I may add some rubber feet as probably will probably slide around on a hard floor. Also the light bar does not have any mounting bolts on top nor screw holes for them (as some pics show), it has just the 4 thumb wheels on the bottom for the supplied lights. No big deal, but a couple changes worth noting if you have seen the pics in the ads. The light bar does have 2 solid looking screw eye bolts, apparently for ceiling mounting by hanging it. There is a locking bolt that fits in the light bar to clamp it firmly on the light tree though it would sit fine without it. You do have to remove this bolt everytime to fit the unit in the case and get the lid closed, just a little nuisance.

 

Function wise the 1st button on the controller runs though about 7 different color combinations, all lights matching. There are 2 more presets that either color change as a snap, or a fade. The fade is a little bit stepped looking not really smooth but still usable, the speed is adjustable but I didn't notice much difference from the slowest settings to the fastest that you can tweak from the bar buttons. The 2nd switch throws the unit into sound activation, and to turn it off sound activation you have to go back to switch 1 and start back with all lights ON which is the 1st "color". The 3rd switch is a blackout off/on switch. All and all way better than no controller at all, and in alot of situations may be all you need.

 

The unit shown as described in the manual is full 15 channels of DMX. Channel 1 are the presets, 2nd master dimmer, 3rd strobe. The other 12 channels are red, green, blue for each of the 4 fixtures fixture separately which is very cool. The unit as seen in the pics doesn't use a DIP switch, you have 3 buttons and an LED readout to set sound vs dmx and the DMX channel you want the unit to start at. I don't have a DMX controller so I wasn't able to test the modes but it looks like you could do some cool stuff with it above and beyond the supplied remote foot switch.

 

Overall I'm happy with the purchase. I can see how this unit will come in handy for alot of our local club gigs where dealing with the sound system is enough already. My long distance plan is to mount 1 or 2 Chauvet 200Bs on each of our speaker stands up top of the speakers, and then use the "4 bar" in the back behind the drummer. Then control it all by DMX, Freestyler on a laptop and operated via a midi footcontroller. Still that is way down the road and already the 4bar is perfect "as is" for some of the smaller bar gigs we do. Heck I've done gigs where the "light show" (right...) was 2 or 3 clamp lights from home depot and 3 colored bulbs stuck ON all night. The 4bar is miles ahead of that already out of the box and truly less tedious to set up. I paid the regular street price of $399 for mine, though I was quoted less by a couple other dealers. However the dealers I talked with willing to quote discounts were not actually getting their shipments in for another month or two. So for now most dealers will probably sell out of the first batch without dealing much.

 

On a side note I was concerned with if the unit (or DMX in general) will cause any kind of noise issues with nearby electric guitars. I tested a single coil strat (which normally can pick up dimmer noise practically in from the next building over) and noted no noise issues even when the lights were flashing. Pretty cool, as electric guitarist know too well that typical incandescant lighting dimmers cause all kinds of noise issues in single coil pickup guitars.

 

The 4bar just seems to be the best deal out there for a start in DMX LED lighting, and/or for folks looking for something quick and easy to carry and setup. I bet they sell alot of these you really get alot for the $.

 

I have a gig this coming saturday and will report how it goes!

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Im hoping these will come down in price a lil bit. Im looking at getting 3 of these and a few scanners and calling it quits on getting lights for a while.:cop:

 

 

Maybe I can find a way to get these without the foot controller and cut down a lil cost.

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I was quoted under $300 from Northern Light & Sound. Problem is they aren't planning to stock it at this time so would have to special order. However apparently Chauvet has sent out all they have for now, and Northern Light told me IF I ordered one they were told it won't be delivered until late April early May. I decided to pay the MAP price for now because I needed to get something running right away. However if I add another I'll probably wait it out and save over $100. I bet several months down the road we will see more discounting.

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Im hoping these will come down in price a lil bit. Im looking at getting 3 of these and a few scanners and calling it quits on getting lights for a while.
:cop:


Maybe I can find a way to get these without the foot controller and cut down a lil cost.

 

I personally think $399 is a MORE than fair price. BTW, I got mine yesterday. I pretty much second everything that Glen K said. Setup was unbelievably quick and painless. I didnt think the stand felt cheap at all. The fixture housings are plastic , but mine werent damaged. The only thing I dont agree with is the brightness. Given, I havent got to test them on a dark stage(that is tomorrow night). But projected on a wall in the shop, I didnt think they were very bright at all. I had all four of the fixtures pointed in the same spot and I compared it to a Par 56 can with a 300 watt bulb and I thought the single Par 56 was quite a bit brighter. I will give a full review after I use them at a show tomorrow

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I'm wondering if they are brighter than my Irradiant LED par 56's. Four of those are about the same price.

The four I already have are great,and I'll probably get four more.But these look like a good backlight to compliment my colorstrips.

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I'm wondering if they are brighter than my Irradiant LED par 56's. Four of those are about the same price.

The four I already have are great,and I'll probably get four more.But these look like a good backlight to compliment my colorstrips.

 

Yea I was wondering the same thing. :confused:

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My only comparison is to some LEDspash jrs. which seem almost unusable dim but folks like them for the right purpose in multiples. Since they are quoted at about 538 lux, I believe the quoted rating on the 4Bar @ 980 per light. Seems that puts the 4bar about even to a 200B rated at 930 lux, theoretically brighter though a little narrower. I'd say the last gigs I did with 300 watt par 56s they were darn painful on a close stage in a small club, maybe the 4Bar is around equal to higher wattage par38s but still no replacment for 300watt watters?

 

Who knows until you get to a gig? I'm using mine tomorrow for a duo gig and I'll report back. The singer I work with was over today and he said he couldn't look at them when they were on full.

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