Which PAR64
LED instruments would you recommend?
For theater performance, none of them. There is a HUGE flaw in your plan. The only
LED's with enough output to be used as
conventional fixture replacements start around $600 each if you want them from a reliable domestic manufacturer. There are Chinese products out there that produce a ton of light for a lot less money (BillESC sells some good options
send him a PM to discuss), but they are Chinese. What happens when one breaks in five years. Good luck calling China for service. I'm sure a good dealer like Bill would do his best to help you, but in an industry where many of us regularly use fixtures that have been around our theaters for 30 or 40 years, that's a gamble many of us are not interested in.
You'll find that most affordable
LED options have these flaws:
-The cheap ones are vastly under powered compared to
conventional fixtures. There are many "Par64"
LED's out there that are not as bright as my AA Mag light.
-The better cheap LEDs are strong in creating deep colors but very poor in creating white and subtle pastel colors used in theater. That means they are not bad at all for lighting a
backdrop, but will not make you happy when trying to light a
face with a subtle cool or warm pastel.
The only
LED that I can completely recommend for theater use are the
ETC Selador series fixtures. Unfortunately, they start around $1000 per
foot depending on the model you choose. However they are bright, produce fantastic whites and pastels, and even dim without changing color. They look fantastic together. I got a quote about four years ago of around $40,000 to light a 40
foot cyc with
Selador's. That price has dropped and the output has gone up since then (so you need less) so it might be more like $30,000 now... but that's still out of most of our price ranges.
At this
point LED's are a great choice for putting a lot of heavy saturated color on a concert tour when you have a huge budget. They are also a good choice for small night clubs or band tours on the cheep with electrical issues... when you don't care if the lead singer's
face is a little too red or green most of the time. With a good budget you can install Seladors into a space and get good theater lighting. But for most theaters
LED fixtures are either disappointing in color and output, a little
bit of a gamble going Chinese, and/or too expensive.
FYI, check out the
LDI 2010 forum for some videos of demos I shot. The only other product that really impresses me at this
point in the energy consumption
category is the
Selecon Nemo. It's not
LED, it's plasma. It's about 1/10th the energy consumption of a normal
incandescent. Freakishly bright and totally awesome. But they are also too expensive at this
point for most of us. The good news is the major manufacturers are starting to move in this area as well. They have more to loose so they will wait until they have really good products to show us. Strong for example had an
LED ellipsoidal on display. It was under powered but the
fixture worked. They were projecting gobos out of a color mixing
LED "
ellipsoidal"
fixture. They just have to ramp up the output and
drop the price to make them accessible.
P.S. Welcome to The Booth. Please asking questions we LOVE to help new people like you. Also stop by the new member forum and introduce yourself. Finally don't just get this question answered and go away. Stick around and you'll learn a lot!