Is Chauvet really crap?

[JChenault]

The question is - do you want to buy a product which the manufacturer properly understands, and has designed from scratch with a thorough knowledge of the technology being used... or do you want to buy a product where the manufacturer has hacked open somebody else's well-formed product, copied the technology and parts, and released it under their own brand - with no R&D expenses - for a lower price?

Yes Chauvet products can look good. But they look good because they brazenly rip off existing products with no regard for the R&D costs or the expertise that went into the original product. And then, later on; because they have not built the products based on their own understanding of the technology, they are not able to offer the same level of support that you would get from the manufacturer who actually designed it to begin with.

I am fundamentally against this practice. For anyone who is not convinced, look at the truss industry. James Thomas Engineering - no doubt one of the pioneers of the industry and who manufactured some of the finest truss you could buy, went under and were bought up by Milos - a company who's business practice is to buy truss from Prolyte and James Thomas; and reverse engineer it in order to produce their own equivalents, with eastern european welders, at lower costs... without a true understanding for the product they are selling you, since their role in it's development was copying it, not developing and producing it. This, in the context of lifting equipment, is worrying. Especially where they are cost cutting in order to maximise sales.

Don't assume that the big brands are invincible. If you want to see lighting products continue to be developed, invest in the companies who develop them, not in the companies who copy them.

I feel like I should point out that (IMHO) Chauvet is starting to create some innovative products. Their line of white LED fixtures which can run off of mains dimming or DMX is innovative. The dimmer curves seem to be outstanding ( from seeing them at trade shows ) if their cyc units ( with the ability to shoot top and bottom, and with a built in "color picker" ) is certainly innovative.

 

[soundlight]

Wow, this thread sure turned fun.

Chauvet does not make all knockoffs, not even close to mostly knockoffs. If that's what you think you're wrong. Also, especially on the Chauvet Pro side, they don't just order from a menu of china products - they actually have their own factory in China.

If you look at their variety of LED wash units, you'll see a great line of fixtures with few equals. For instance the COLORdash line - I can choose from a batten with 6 or 12 LEDS (with pixel control) or a flat PAR with 7 or 12 LEDs, all with the same LEDs, very durable and well-designed housings (including center & end mounting points for the Batten 12), and powercon in/out (not powercon knockoff like the bulk direct purchasers but genuine Neutrik powercon) as well as 3 and 5 pin DMX.

If you look at their moving heads, you'll see that they've swept the competition in terms of LED spots. On the Pro side, they've got the Rogue R2 and R1 spots - which are exceptional in their output and featureset. Heck, Kinetic Lighitng out in Cali replaced many of their MAC250 Entours with R2 spots. R2 spot: 2x color wheel, 2x gobo wheel (1 rotate 1 static), rot prism, frost, iris. On the DJ side, they've got the Intimidator Spot/Scan line - the most fully fleshed-out, best-featured line of low-budget LED spots out there. Intimidator Spot 355Z: 90W LED, 12-17* motorized zoom & focus, rotating gobos, rotating prism, color wheel. Killer fixture. Just demo'd it 2 weeks ago. Int Spot 350: 75W LED, CW, Rot GW, Rot Prism, motorized focus, manual 12-17* zoom. Int Scan 300: CW, rot GW, static prism, motorized focus, 21* beam angle (How 'bout those low ceiling venues? I put 5 of these in a small 300 cap room with a 9' trim height and they rock better than anything else could.) Int spot 250: CW, rot GW, static prism, manual focus, 17* beam. If anything, the ADJ Inno series is a direct knockoff of the Chauvet Intimidators. ADJ came out with their units much later and modified their specs to be bid swappable with the Chauvets. I'd never before seen a 75W LED unit that could take on a MAC700 profile and look good.

They've also pioneered the use of the Kling-Net protocol from Arkaos, with the EPIX line of strips/bars to provide a better alternative to chewing through art-net universes at a universe per fixture. Chauvet has also been producing outdoor-ready IP-rated entertainment LED wash units for longer than most - remember the original Colorado 3? As mentioned above, they're also ahead of the curve on the dimmable theatrical LEDs.

Does the Legend 230SR beam look like a Sharpy? Sure does. Does the NXT-1 look like a 5x5 MagicPanel? Sure does. Does the WELL look like a GDS uplight? Sure does. But this doesn't mean they make an entire line of knockoffs, and also not everyone can afford Clay Paky, Robe, V*L, Ayrton, and Martin everything. I'd also say that having rather significant experience with an extensive inventory of Martin (101s, Auras, 700s, 2ks), Vari*Lite (2500s, 3000s, 3500s), and Clay Paky (Sharpys, B-EYEs), those brands can have just as many issues. I won't go in to enumerated detail, but I can say that I'm less impressd with Clay Paky than I was 2 years ago after being the one responsible for testing & diagnosing Sharpys and B-EYEs. I used to hear about rampant service issues with Chauvet, but not recently. I know of an install of Chauvet's original LED spot mover - the Q-Spot 260. 30 or so units. Been running 4 nights a week 12 hours a night for a few years now. Only service issue so far? A single tilt belt. Put Clay Paky units in there and they'd be on the bench more often. I can almost guarantee it. Do they still have some dud products? Absolutely. One of their fog machines with the bendable front-end - hurricane flex or something like that - was the most issue-prone fog machine in the history of fog machines, from what I understand. They've had some lights that just don't work that well, have lensing issues, &c &c.

 

[Esoteric]

We tend to skip Chauvet and Elation and go straight to China, but we also sell quite a bit of Chauvet and Elation gear. They can have issues for sure. Their failure rate is higher than the brands that cost twice or three times as much. But that is to be expected. That said, they do make a lot of innovative products (far more than say 5 or 10 years ago) and their customer support (through their dealers) is excellent.

Are they the best moving/LED lights out there? Nope. Are they crap? Far from it.

Mike

 

[Heather Michaelson]

I have to say - if you had told me a year ago even that I would be buying Chauvet lighting or recommending it I would have called you crazy. However, their new products have really come up in quality and are great in the value aspect of what you get for the cost. True they still aren't as good as others, nor as cheap as the super cheap, but you get great bang for buck.

I also have just bought several Mega-Lite products and I have to say "bang for buck" wise, they truly kick butt. Their products are bright and intelligently designed with innovation in mind for a lower price than any others. I have four of the Axis Prime 10R movers and their price point with the features is insane.

 

[Les]

I think the Chinese argument needs to be put to the side. It does suck that we rely on them so much for manufacturing, but in this day in age, it doesn't determine the quality of the fixture. I have several Vari-lites, made here in the USA and some of the most legendary movers around. Where are many of the parts made? China.

 

[egilson1]

We happened to have just placed four Chauvet Nexus 5x5 led panels into our inventory. Nice units with good build quality. We'll see how they do over the long run.

Here is a 45 sec video of them Video game trade show currently happening.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iswxnypl64xng6h/Nexus 5x5.wmv?dl=0

 

[gafftaper]

ARGH! This is a topic that drives me crazy. If you have the budget of a U2 world tour, you may feel that Chauvet products are beneath you. If you are the typical high school you probably dream of the day that you will have enough money in your budget to just buy few no name Chinese Knock offs. Brands like Blizzard, Irradiant, or even American DJ may be far too high of quality for you to dream of purchasing. Most of us around here are somewhere in the middle. To call any brand "Crap" is unfair to the manufacturer and I believe just shows your arrogance and privilege. There is a product line for every need and every budget. If American DJ meets your needs and fits within your budget, then it becomes the perfect tool for your job. Yeah we would love to all own Martin or VL, but we can't that doesn't make brands that aren't Martin "Crap".

Furthermore, I really didn't like the knock off accusations in this thread. Chauvet may make products that have similar functions to more expensive brands but that's not the same thing as stealing R&D. Having spent some time listening to @Ford discuss the ins and outs of designing LED fixtures and the difficulties of getting LED bins to match colors, I assure you Chauvet is doing plenty of R&D work. It's really easy to see a fixture with the same output level, same number of gobos, that serves the same purpose in a manufacturers product line and call it a knock off. It's an entirely different thing to build that fixture. Every moving light manufacturer in the industry makes an LED wash light. Does that mean they are all knocking off the brand that created the first one? Clay Packy made the Sharpie, are other manufacturers wrong for creating their own products to compete with it?

So go ahead and like or dislike Chauvet products, but do it for legitimate reasons of matching or not matching your needs. Calling them "crap" just shows your own ignorance and arrogance. Choose the product in your budget that does the job you need, but don't berate a product just because your budget allows you to buy something more expensive.

And Yes, although I don't own any Chauvet products (I would love to but currently can't afford them at my facility), I'm definitely biased. As I recently posted in another thread, there are really good people working at Chauvet whom I consider friends. They are big believers in what we do here on CB and pay a lot of the bills to keep this website going. If you love CB as much as I do, at least give the people of Chauvet respect for all the support they provide us here.

 

[DELO72]

Kudos to Gafftaper for his comments above. Chauvet has seen IMMENSE growth over the past 10 years. In that time they've brought on top notch staff & development people from other companies (Product Manager Mike Graham for instance worked at Coemar for many years and brought his knowledge of HID moving lights over to Chauvet Professional). I work with their R&D team quite a bit, and I can tell you they hold us (as a supplier) to the absolute HIGHEST quality standards, and the moment there is a report of any type of early lamp failure or performance issue, they are all over it, address it with us and the factory, and push us to work together to identify the issue and immediately correct it. That kind of drive and commitment to their product is exactly what you should want in a supplier. While Chauvet has some of their product made overseas, they set the parameters, criteria, design characteristics, etc. They don't just put their brand on another product.

I would equate them to Hyundai. 15 years ago no one would buy a Hyundai as they were seen as a small, South Korean auto manufacturer with questionable quality. For the past 5-10 years Hyundai has one of the most reliable vehicles on the road, with the best warranty, and I now own one and haven't had any issues at all in 5 years. I went from a complete skeptic to a believer. It's not a Mercedes, but then I didn't want to pay $50,000+ for a Mercedes.

Threads with titles like this are annoying and misleading. At OSRAM we make a VAST variety of product, from $1 incandescent bulbs, to $5000 Xenon lamps for the semiconductor industry. Some of it (the $1.50 bulbs) could be classified as "crap" by the fact they are cheap to make, cheap to buy, some come from China, and they don't last a long time. Some of it is some of the highest quality product in the market-- and you pay for it. It doesn't mean my product is all crap, or is all great. If Chauvet (or any company) didn't make great product, they wouldn't be growing exponentially year after year, with one of the largest booths at the tradeshows. Big booths like theirs cost a freakin' FORTUNE, by the way. Companies that make bad product go out of business and don't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at multiple tradeshows each year to show you their product.

 

[Jeff Lelko]

Interesting discussion, so I figured I'd through my 2 cents in. I've had very mixed experiences with Chauvet. Their products definitely seem to be very hit-or-miss, and I've ended up with more misses than hits. Now, keep in mind that my experience with them is on the sub $1K fixture per level, so you get what you pay for, but I've never had an experience that was so bad I'd never buy from them again. My personal system consists of equipment from many different brands including ADJ, Eliminator, Chauvet, Optima, Elation, Martin, and ETC, and the reliability/output/performance of all these units is about on par with what I paid for them. From seeing plenty of Chauvet LDI booths in person I'd have no hesitation buying the higher dollar fixtures if they meet my needs, but for one reason or another have always ended up going the Elation/Martin route in that area. My only concern with sinking a lot of money into brands like Chauvet is the availability of spare parts. At least with units from Martin, VL, High End, etc. you know you can generally find the replacement part you need from either the company directly or just another unit since typically a high number are made/sold versus an obscure $99 DJ light. Two different markets though, and brands like Chauvet definitely try to be part of both. In the end, you generally get what you pay for, and I'd say any brand (including Chauvet) is a much better investment than the true no-name ebay suppliers.

 

[Bryce_J]

Chauvet dj= crap for most theater uses however Chauvet professional is actually rather good and much more affordable than many other companies.

 

[kendal69]

Who says Chauvet is crap. I just ordered two Martin RUSH lights and one came dead on arrival. that's a 50% fail rate, and that's MARTIN. Chauvet I ordered 24 led's and one was Dead on arrival, so you tell me.

 

[techieman33]

Who says Chauvet is crap. I just ordered two Martin RUSH lights and one came dead on arrival. that's a 50% fail rate, and that's MARTIN. Chauvet I ordered 24 led's and one was Dead on arrival, so you tell me.

You can't always blame something showing up broken on the manufacturer, shipping is hard on stuff and can lead to things getting broken or not working right when you get them. I just got 20 generic LED puck and they were all working when I got them. Does that make them better than Martin and Chauvet? Of course not. If you had ordered 100 of them and half showed up not working, then yeah there could maybe be a problem with quality control, or shipping container design. 2 fixtures just isn't enough of a sample to make any judgements.