American DJ Acuspot 250 vs.

Martin is superior to ADJ and most other competitors in just about everything they make. the optics area stounding and the design quality of each of their fixtures surpasses everyone in their class. You would be far happier with the scanners.

Martin is based out of Denmark, btw and is regarded as a very high standard of DJ lighting as well as stage lighting. Everything you need to know can be found here

the martin mania series is a japenese made series which is a p.o.s. i have heard stories about them and have been refered not to buy them many dealers across the u.s. also elation is slowly buy surely cathing up to martin with the same benefits Christian J just mentioned but at a way lower cost! my two watts. peace! jingles.

martin in my eyes is going down hill every year. New lights are crap. and not made as durable as older lights. I bought some of the martin mac and to be honest i like to american dj accuspot 300s much better.. Now my old boys the martin 812's 218's and 518's i have about 20 of each and they all still work like they did 10 years ago....

They are two different kind of lights...Now if you are talking Accu Scan 250 and not the Spot the Spot is a moving Head and athe Scan is a scanner like the Martin... So If we are talking both scans I would go with the ADJ Because of the lanp it ueses a discharg MSD 250 and the Martin uses 250 W halogen lamp.... the discharge lamps are great there is no filiment to deal with so they can take a lot of bumping around the use a arc type og a lamp and the Martin uses a 250 W halogen bulb a lot more fragle ... But if you are talking Scanners VS Moving heads I like the look of a moving head better but the Sacnners are faster so it is just depends what you need ...thanks

DJ Mikey Mike

You may want to have a look at the Martin SCX 700. This scanner uses a 150w discharge lamp, which will far surpass the performance of the 600's halogen source. The SCX 700 and Accu Spot have very similar features, with the exception that one's a scanner and one's a head, and one's Martin and one's ADJ. Though the Accu Spot uses a 250w discharge, the optics in the Martin will surely be better (excluding the comparison between a scanner and a moving head), so more than likely the Martin's 150w will appear nearly comparable the ADJ's 250, not to mention that 150w lamps are cheaper than the 250s! If you want the actual specs on output, consult the user manuals. FYI: The Martin Mania series units are built like tanks, so they'll easily hold up on the road!

Edit: Did not notice this thread was started almost 2 years ago.

AND....your on the ADJ forums praising a martin light? funny. haha.

A scanner vs a moving head, you can have the best optics in the world, and the scanner will be duller. The reason is there is quite a bit of light loss with the mirror on scanners. So a Martin Scanner 150w discharge won't keep up with a 250w moving head discharge. Lumen output for discharge lamps increases almost linearly. This means the 250w has about 67% more output then a 150w lamp, and optics can't make up that much of a difference.

As for Martin, a lot don't realize the history of Martin. They started out as a DJ only company like ADJ/Elation and then moved up to compete with Vari-Lite and High End Systems(now Barco). So I wouldn't knock ADJ harder then Martin. I have used everything from Trackspots to Showguns (ironically both HES lights), and there are so many instances that I would much rather have an Elation DS series unit over a Martin Mac series. Build quality from digging around in both lights are the same. There are a few things I still like about the Macs over the DS, but I work around the quirks and know what they are. Likewise, I don't care for the Mac III all that much either.

They aren't, however, on the level as VL. I put them on a level to themselves. After all, they did invent the moving light. HES also made some tanks, which is why so many Studio/Color series are still around despite being ancient in lighting years at this point.

I understand what you say about how a 250w lamp should be much brighter than a 150w and yes, theoretically it should. I recently observed a demonstration of the ADJ AccuSpot 575 vs the ADJ AccuSpot 250, and honestly I couldn't tell a difference between the two. No, I was not using a meter to measure the intensity. This was just how it looked to me - two white circles on a white wall. Maybe one lamp was new, the other was old, I really couldn't say since they weren't mine. I'm sure the 575 would have more throw than the 250, as well as having a better ability to project colors well.

True, a scanner will never be as bright as it's moving head counterpart. Perhaps that would be shown if we compared the AccuSpot 250 to the AccuScan 250. In that case, the head should be brighter than the scanner. In the case I mentioned (AccuSpot 250 vs Martin SCX700), they are obviously different units from different manufacturers, not to mention one's a moving head and one's a scanner. The point really becomes would a less powerful lamp do the job well enough at less of a cost to the owner.

I will agree that Elation definitely offers some nice products. I don't own anything from them yet, however I own both ADJ gear and Martin gear. The choice (for me) really comes down to who is selling what I'm looking for.

Reason they look the same is color temperature difference. One is 7500k and the other 8500k. That 250w is as bright as a 750w standard life HPL. Put them side by side however, and the 250w arc will 'look' brighter do to color temperature. Drop some CTO in 250w arc to get its color temperature down to 3200k and they will look the same.

Likewise if you would have dropped some color, like a dark red for example, into the 575 and the 250 side by side, the 575 would have out shined it easily. See here for where I explain quite a bit about color temperature and perception.

As for buying what you are looking for, of course. Always get what you need to do your job, never anything less. Otherwise you are wasting money. Some instances I need a VL fixture to do what I need to do, other times a Mac, still others a Studio Spot, and others a Design Spot. I simply said given a choice, I am taking a Design Spot series over a Mac series unless there is something I specifically need a Mac series for. For example, my client has custom gobos that only fit a Mac 2k.

I think one of the problems that the poster brought up is how some of the "new stuff is crap".

All I can say is that they simply don't make them like they used to. Economy going bad or not, the trend has been around for a while. It's industry wide, pretty much. Almost all companies are looking to save costs whenever and where-ever possible. What does happen is "you can't fool the pros", because they'll find out what ain't happening and what is happening.

People like SerraAva have sufficient experience with lighting to know what sucks and what rocks. Sometimes, you have to spend MORE to get what you want, but you get more value for these higher end and higher priced products.

My experience is with sound. But alas, I have no money. So, instead of trying to buy, I am just trying to save up. I waste money here and there on mics and other commodity items. It's necessary.