Deal or No Deal: 2 ADJ Mighty Scans for $250?

[CaptainBetty]

Greetings everyone. Been a lurker for a little while and finally registered! Really like all the great advice here.

 

Thought I'd throw this out to community.

 

I've been looking at adding scanners to my lighting rig. I don't want to blow a whole bunch of cash, but I don't want to buy crap either.

 

Application; typical small/mid venues for a local band. Looking to add a bit more punch to the show.

 

Rig: Chauvet 4bar-tri (x2), 4bar (x2), 4play (x2), 1100 Hurricane, Obey 40.

 

I run the tri's up front, and stack the 4bar/4plays in the back-line.

 

If I got scanners I'd upgrade the back-line with a truss system.

 

Scanners: Came across a dj on craigslist selling 2 ADJ Mighty Scans for $250/pair. Working condition. From what I can tell, they'd do the job and maybe I can get him to come down a bit on price.

 

I know from other threads here, that the Mighty's are very heavy and discontinued but benefit from separate color/gobo wheels.

 

I have all LED lights and I'm concerned about the power draw with these 250w scanners, but I want *bright* and to get that with LEDs you have to pay through the nose. I'm just not ready for that.

 

Ultimately I'd love to have 4 scanners (2 on the truss along with the 4bars and 4play, and maybe two on the floor).

 

I also saw these American DJ DJ Scan 250 EX for $200/ea at guitarcenter on clearance. A friend of mine swears by ADJ and has been happy with his over the last few years.

 

Anyways... thoughts? Jump on those mighty scans? go for the 250EXs? Hold out for LED?

 

You can see some of the lighting on the band's web site: badhabitzband.com under photos. The "Chillerz New London 2/10/12" album is my light rig.

[BillESC]

As you stated, very heavy and parts are no longer available. I'd say no deal.

 

Save up and go LED.

[soundlight]

Hold out for LEDs. There's no lamps to change, the field is always even and crisp (on any half decent unit), and they're nice and bright and cut through well (again on any half decent unit, there are some real lousy fixtures out there).

[CaptainBetty]

Thanks guys. All good points and I agree; LED is the way to go. It's the "i want it now" mentality that's getting to me.

 

I did find these 60W LED scanners: http://www.sdelighting.com/store/sixty-scan for $345/ea (at least $100 cheaper than I can get the Intimidator 300s through northernsound.net) and comparable to the Intimidator 300 in specs.

 

The other question... should I shoot for the 60w scanners or do you think the Intimidator 200's would be good enough for small to medium venues?

 

200: Beam angle: 15

[soundlight]

I think that you should go for 60W scanners - the Intimidator 300s are of course the best option out there, and they have a couple things that make them better than the SDE fixtures. One thing is the prism, the Intimidator 300s have a prism (albeit non rotating) that spreads out the beam. The second is beam angle, the Intimidator 300 is a nice, wide beam fixture compared to most other scanners on the market. This is great for lower ceilings and shorter throws. Third, the gobos are better in the 300 (my opinion, but I think it's an easy one to share). Fourth, the 300 has motorized focus, so you can hard focus a gobo on the floor or on the drape behind the band or out on the ceiling or back wall in the venue. The SDE fixture has manual focusing which means you have to spin the lens to focus the gobos & the beam overall. The Intimidator 200 also shares all of these limitations except gobo quality, the 200 has similar gobos to the 300.

 

If these factors don't matter to you, maybe the SDE fixture is the one for you. But also take in to account that Chauvet has much more of a supply network & can deliver a lot more product than SDE, and what if SDE goes out of business like various other flash-in-the-pan Chinese importers and then you can't add to your rig with those fixtures? Admittedly most other fixtures will also product cycle out, but possibly not before a company like SDE stops importing. It's up to you, but I'd go with the Chauvet units. I have used the Intimidator Scan 300s myself and they are quite bright, sharp, and all around great fixtures.

 

I wouldn't trust the output photometrics from Chauvet, they've been known to be a bit erroneous at best in my experience. Also, it's much harder to measure the output on an LED fixture than it is a regular fixture because of the spectrum that an LED puts out.

[CaptainBetty]

Cool. Thanks soundlight! I appreciate your input! I do enjoy my chauvet products and they've always treated me well when I needed assistance.

[soundlight]

I've been quite impressed with Chauvet as of late. If they'd just get a parts website up like the one that ADJ has and get it up to date with all of their products, they'd really be all the way there. As it stands, they are delivering a great line of products that have an increasingly professional featureset. They can be a bit on the expensive side when you compare them to antiquated, sub-par technology, but when you line them up with fixtures with a similar featureset, they win. There isn't another LED scanner out there that's got the featureset of the Intimidator Scan LED 300.

[CaptainBetty]

Thanks again everyone...

 

Just pulled the trigger on two 300's, crank truss, cables, clamps, fog juice, dmx terminator from Guitar Center (got a smokin' deal).

 

I would have loved to have 4 scanners but that'll have to wait...

 

I'll have it in enough time to set it up, test and have it ready for my son's band's next round of gigs in April. Let's hope everything arrives in one piece...