Just a few comments about the possibility of
Selecon/
Strand/Phillips killing the
source four with it's new
ellipsoidal:
About two years ago, I read on
line about the
Selecon Acclaim 4 1/2 inch
Fresnel. I really wanted to check it out as a replacement for some aging 6" Fresnels. As luck would have it,
PRG (Orlando) was having an open
house for those of us that couldn't afford to go to
LDI in Vegas that year. I called and asked if they would be displaying the
Selecon products. After about 4 different respodents, they "thought so".
I drove the 45 miles to see, and was very pleased that one of the first booths that I came to was
Selecon. A very pleasant person answered all of my questions and let me
play withe the various
instrument. I was impressed, and started to explain that I was very much interested in eventually purchasing some a few at a time. I started my comments, that "We were a poor
community Theatre". I was stopped in mid sentence, and told that I had just said the magic word, and won a fully decked out Acclaim. I took it back to the
theatre and did a not so formally shoot out with several other instruments of the same, or close type. With the FRK lamp at 650 watts, it was much brighter and more even field than either my
Altman or EC 6" Fresnels" running 750 watts. It was very close to the
ETC PARNel and less bright than the
ETC PAR both using 575
watt. The big advantage was that it has a
zoom range of 6* to 60* and is much smaller and lighter in weight. Additional features that are sellers, are the built in adjustable
safety cable and the six
foot cord. Also the
power cable and
safety come out the top of the back of the
instrument making focus and hanging easier.
I purchased 2 more almost immediately. Then a month or two later, I purchased 7 more. At that last
purchase, they had just been purchased by Phillips and joined with
Strand. The
purchase now took over a month with
Strand now involved, and they tried to talk me out of them and
purchase Strand instruments instead.
Over the nest few shows, all of my LDs fell in love with the Acclaim. I was budgeting to start purchasing at least another 20, when all of a sudden the price was increased a
bit. (not a deal
breaker) Then one of the instruments burned out it's
socket. Emails and phone calls later, I was informed that a replacement
socket would be $60 and that they would have to come from New Zealand. (two boats a month) I paid $150 per
instrument, so $60 for a
socket was pretty high in my estimation. Now it gets worse, that there is a minimum $100
purchase. The
instrument is very complex in it's construction and very difficult to get the
socket out. The FRK lamp has one pin smaller in diameter than the other, so replacing the
socket with one of the generic types is nearly impossible. The FRK lamp had the filiment at a much lower height to
base than most of the rest of lamps with a G9.5
base making it nearly impossible to find a replacement lamp with equal diameter pins.
The
instrument is now in a box in pieces, and instead of purchasing 20 more Acclaims, I am in the proccess of rebuilding 20 older Fresnels that I had previously put in the warehouse for dispossal.
My
point from this long dissertation, is that I don't think that Phillips/
Strand/
Selecon, have the business sense or the distribution capabilities to compete against
ETC and their dealer
network, regardless of how wonderful their new
Ellipsoidal may or may not be.
When you can get any and all parst of a
Source four over night for a very fair price,(except the
reflector), They will be the "King of the Hill", until a superior procuct with superior support and a better or equal price comes along.