Robe Lighting has recently introduced their latest and most powerful fixture to date. The ColorSpot 2500 spot is a hard edge automated fixture that has all the bells and whistles you would expect from a premium product, but its brightness makes this fixture stand out. With the advent of all the 1200-watt wash lights that have come out, the fixture has become a necessary addition to their product line. This new fixture competes in this class, and it will be a major player on the stadium rock circuit or as a searchlight or special effect for many trade shows. Robe has used a lot of the same features from their 1200 spot fixture, including CMY color mixing, an extra color wheel, two gobo wheels, effects wheel, zoom, dimming and more. But they have beefed up the fixture. There is an extended snout on the front, which is part of the optics system designed to give this unit a maximum light output. The fixture uses the Philips MSR Gold Fast Fit 1200-watt lamp, but the ballast is a 1400- watt switch-mode power supply. The parabolic reflector is designed to maximize efficiency. I lined this fixture up against a few opponents’ models, and the hot spot appeared to be significantly brighter than the others, especially from a 60-foot throw.
If you have used the Robe ColorSpot 1200 fixture before, you are probably a fan of its fast, precise movement and its ability to return to a pinpoint focus. After test driving the 2500 fixture last week at the Nobel Peace Prize Awards Ceremony, I am glad to see that it moves equally as well. The 2500 has a strong yoke and fast tilt motors that allow for good response time when a movement cue is executed. I was able to run them in a flawless circle pattern at a reasonably fast speed and have them stop on a dime.
The color system is a true CMY system. By this I mean that when you mix the cyan and magenta flags to full, you get a Congo blue. They are fast and can seamlessly bump colors. The color fades transition smoothly. I did notice that the colors are not flatly mixed to perfection; if, for example, I mix an amber, the outside of the beam is dark orange, but the center is yellow. But that’s not bothersome to me. There is also a CTO color flag for color correction to 3200° for camera work.
The color wheel includes four dichroic filters, a UV and a 6000K filter. These colors are easily replaceable. The wheel can rotate at variable speeds or run in random color chasing mode. There is also an option for random color selection via an audio input.
The two gobo wheels each have six stock gobos with lots of multi-colored dichroic gobos. They’re indexable and can shake or continuously spin at variable speeds. You can use two gobos at once to create cool water and fire effects, or morph from one gobo to the other quite fluidly. The focus is smooth and fast. If you are not a fan of multi-colored gobos, don’t despair. The fixture comes with six additional gobos that are more suited for aerial breakups. This definitely takes Robe to the next level in my book.
The zoom ranges between 10 and 30 degrees smoothly, without stepped lenses popping into place. A strong point here is that there is little light loss when the fixture zooms out. The iris mechanism is quite fast and smooth, especially when you use the iris macros to create a sine wave effect.
The effects wheel has a 3- and 5-facet prism, a rectangular beam shaping prism and something I can only call a “blob” effect. It softens the outside edge of the gobos through some really tight multiple prism layers. They all spin like the gobos. There is also a variable frost filter.
I rarely ever utilize the built-in macros in any lighting fixture. But that’s about to change for me. Robe has the coolest built-in macros that I have ever seen. They include multiple gobos and prisms overlaying each other and spinning at variable speeds. They are simply breathtaking and will make any programmer look like a genius.
The dimming is smooth and perfectly linear to my eye. The strobe rate can hit up to 15 frames per second and can be set in a random mode as well. The lamp can be remotely struck or strike on application of AC. The power supply is not autovoltage sensing, but it can be tapped for 90 to 240 volts.
The fixture is large — 25 inches high by 21 inches wide — but I can still fit it in a section of swing wing truss. It weighs 92 pounds. It has some specially designed handles that make it handle easily. The road cases designed for this fixture are quite clever as well. The durability of other Robe products has become well known in the lighting business.
The fact that this fixture uses the same proven gobo, color and movement mechanisms as its predecessor means that this fixture should stand up well to the rigors of the road as well as to bad weather conditions. I believe this could be the best hard edge fixture available for live music lighting today.
What it is: Automated profile spot luminaire
What it’s for: Aerial and graphic beam projections in large venues
Pros: Very bright, smooth movement, seems to be built well, reasonably priced for fixture of this caliber
Cons: Lacks auto-voltage sensing power supply, color mixing exhibits some non-uniformity
Retail Price: $17,738
