One of the holiest of grails for stage lighting is a color changing LED fixture that can compete with a PAR/gel scroller/dimmer package. When an LED can match the quantity and quality of light at a price that makes sense, then that's a game-changer. Ironically, Wybron, the manufacturer known for inventing the gel scroller, is on the forefront of challenging the conventional PAR/scroller/dimmer with their new Cygnus LED fixture. How does it compare to a PAR package?
Quantity of Light
Were it not for the slotted vents near the rear of the fixture and the circular array of 23 5-watt LEDs, it would look a lot like a PAR can. It measures 9.7 inches wide by 13.8 inches long. At 14.5 pounds, it's no heavier than an aluminum PAR can with a lamp and a gel scroller, and if you factor in the weight of a single channel of dimming, then 14.5 pounds starts to sound very good. Of course, that only matters in touring applications where more weight costs more fuel and more labor.
From the standpoint of the quantity of light, it's really bright. Using a Minolta T-10 Illuminance Meter, we measured 293 footcandles in white with a 10-foot throw and an 8.3-foot diameter field. It's difficult to compare numerically with a PAR lamp because a PAR has an elongated field, and it would require a calculation of the total luminous flux in order to accurately compare them. But suffice it to say that it appears to fall between the output of a 500-watt and a 1000-watt PAR 64 lamp. And the uniformity of the Cygnus is far superior to that of a PAR lamp. In fact, the field looks extremely uniform, and the illuminance meter confirms that as well.
When we compare colors, that's when an LED fixture leaves a PAR can behind in terms of light output. Most of the colors look much brighter coming from an LED fixture, and they also use much less power because of the additive nature of the color mixing in an LED fixture. In a PAR, the unwanted colors are still radiating from the fixture, but they're blocked by a color filter and converted from light energy to heat energy. In an LED, the unwanted colors are simply not generated. Again, it's difficult to quantify the difference in brightness between an LED fixture and a PAR can because of the way light meters work, but to the naked eye the differences can easily be seen.
Of course, this is being done with a lot less power than a PAR can. The Cygnus draws about 2 amps in white and less in colored light. That's less than 25 percent of the current draw from a 1000-watt PAR not including the scroller. So you can run these lights on much less supply capacity, saving money on power distribution in permanent installations and touring applications, as well as saving addition money on fuel and labor costs in a touring rig.
Quality of Light
In terms of the quality of light, the Cygnus looks very natural and it seems to render colors very well. By looking at a range of differently colored objects, it appears that the CRI is at least very close to 92, as the Wybron specs indicate. Skin tones look natural in the white light and the fixture does have the ability to adjust the correlated color temperature from 2000K to 7500K.
The dimming is extremely smooth, and looks very much like an incandescent lamp as it dims. It has no signs of dimming steps even in a 10 second long fade. Nor does it show any signs of flicker on video. It also has a "high speed" mode which is designed to eliminate flicker on HD video but we didn't have an HD camera with which to test it. The user manual says that the fixture doesn't dim as low in high speed mode because of the pulse rate of the power supply.
Extras
The Cygnus also does a lot of things a PAR can't do, like strobe, run in stand-alone mode and talk back to the controller with Remote Device Management (RDM). The strobe is very effective and it operates from .25 flashes per second to 30 FPS. In stand-alone mode there are three factory preset programs and one user-programmable sequence with up to eight steps. The playback can be set to fade from 0 to 90 seconds.
The RDM capabilities of this fixture allow it to be configured and monitored remotely using Wybron's Infogate gateway or another RDM-capable controller. You can "discover" it automatically and load the parameter information on the controller without having to import the information from a fixture library. After the discovery, the RDM controller will know how many attributes the fixture has, what their channel assignments are, what the DMX address is set to, and which mode of operation it's in. You can also change the DMX address, the mode, or any other settable attributes, and the fixture can report error messages back to the controller.
Dollars and Sense
The quantity and quality of light from the fixture is very much up to par (pun intended). How does it compare in terms of price? At a retail price of $2,230, it might appear at first glance to be out of the range of a PAR can with a gel scroller and dimmer. But look closely and you'll find that it's much more economical than you might think. An aluminum PAR 64 with a scroller and dimmer costs roughly 60 percent of the price of a Cygnus. Now factor in the cost savings due to the reduced energy consumption – 75 percent savings over the 60,000 hour life of the fixture at $0.10 per kWh is roughly $4,500. That's not counting the cost of replacement lamps for the PAR, which ranges from about $750 (with long life lamps) to $2,500 (using Q1000 lamps), the labor to replace them, or the cost of HVAC to remove the extra heat generated by PAR lamps.
The Cygnus does make good financial sense, and it has a lot of good features. In the interest of full disclosure, it should be mentioned that it is not flawless, but then, what fixture is? Among the less flattering issues are the multiple shadows this fixture throws. This is not unique to LED fixtures, but it takes some getting used to. Instead of casting a single shadow, it produces a series of shadows that break up the outline. However, because it uses a quad-color LED chip, it does not exhibit multi-colored shadows. Another issue is the very slight, almost imperceptible slightly pink color in the center of the beam when it's projecting in white. Lastly, it does have an internal fan, although we never heard it operating.
But for all of the positives, these are very small issues to live with. In most applications the shadow will fall unseen on the stage deck, and unless you are using it for shadow puppets it will not be an issue. Nor will the slight discoloration of the white beam be an issue in most cases.
More for the Money
Compared to a PAR can with a scroller and dimmer, this fixture has a lot to offer. But it is capable of so much more. Because it doesn't need a scroller, remote power supply or dimmer, it can fit in tight spaces. It can produce effects that conventional fixtures can't, like instant color chases or color crossfades from any color to any other color.
The advantages of LED fixtures are well documented. The Cygnus takes all of those advantages and packages them in a familiar form factor, making it a good candidate for your next lighting design.
Wybron Cygnus
What it is: An LED color changing wash fixture
What it's for: Key light, fill light, and/or color wash
Pros: Bright, smooth dimming, good color rendering, no flicker, integrated power supply, low power consumption, long life
Cons: Multiple shadows, fan-cooled
Retail Price: $2,230
