Shehds shootout?

They're still tryin'a sell me cheap lights on Facebook... ;-)

The latest is this baby low-rent ColorSource 4, or something akin to that...

https://shehds.com/products/new-arr...ubweddingtheater-stage?variant=42980311564341

And it leads me to wonder: has anyone been crazy enough to do an *actual* shootout against any of the ETC color lekos, 4 or 7 color? How badly do they suck from a light perspective (as opposed to a reliability perspective)?

We have a long time director here, who when our ticket price was $16, used to say.. The show may not be perfect, but how bad can it be for 16 bucks.
He of course would also say. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in front of a black curtain.

But then his sets were always lavish, and his productions extraordinary.

But dollar for dollar, they only have to last 1/6 as long as a Lustr, as far as durability. So yep I'm sorely tempted to try a pair.

Some of the "reviews" on FB suggest that they're ok for a noisy environment, but the fans are somewhat obtrusive for theatre. It would be interesting to try some - at the currently advertised price they're quite a bit cheaper than the bargain basement fresnels we have.

I bet reliability is way better than you would expect. All SHEHDS is doing is putting a real branding on the short run stuff that has existed in China for years. I think they are also attaching real documentation to it. Could you fill a rider with any of it... no. Could you build an events company off of it or light a summer camp stage? Yup, all day long.

I've purchased and used Shehds Aluminum PARs and wash movers. My own experience is:
PAR Wash: Fixtures are very bright and punchy. RGBWAUV gives good colors. Brackets not beefy but adequate. Fans do run a lot, not loud but it could add up depending on application. At roughly 10% the price of a CSPAR, I feel they have their place.
Wash Mover: Also bright, and decent color with RGBW. I did pick one up "too aggressively" and the handle broke off, so I would maybe not tour with them. We also had to play with fixture profiles to get smooth dimming etc, but they work.
I've bought about 50 Shehds fixtures and they all worked out of the box. The design is the design, but manufacturing quality seems to be good from what I've seen.
For what it's worth!

Footer said:

I bet reliability is way better than you would expect. All SHEHDS is doing is putting a real branding on the short run stuff that has existed in China for years. I think they are also attaching real documentation to it. Could you fill a rider with any of it... no. Could you build an events company off of it or light a summer camp stage? Yup, all day long.

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Yeah, that was about what my evaluation was, but I don't have enough experience to bank on it.

LPdan said:

We also had to play with fixture profiles to get smooth dimming etc, but they work.

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Do they come with/are there in existence profiles for them for, say, the EOS desks? Or do you have to build them up from scratch?

EOS has some Shehds profiles (about 234 last time I looked), but I've seen people asking for fixture profiles (on FB, of course, never on the official channel) for unsupported Shehds fixtures.

We bought 2 Shehds wash movers for the kids at the high school to play with. Until last year, we had a 100% conventional lighting rig, and just added in the first 6 LED's. It is hard to teach programming at any level these days without having some movers, so I bought 2. Although I swore that I would never use them in an actual show, we did program 2 into a 1 day performance at the end of the school year and have been using them for 1-off dance recitals in the space this summer. The color isn't too bad, and the movement has actually been better than expected. The zoom is awful, and it just throws lots of light everywhere. The color temperatures and exact hues between fixtures has been better than expected, but not 100% exact. They are certainly brighter than expected, and the dimming curve from 100% down to 70% of so has been good. Less than that gets a little erratic. I have taught the kids to change to the darkest blue as they are fading out, so it is less noticeable (and a little more complex programming, which is good for them to play with).

The profiles are in the ETC EOS, so no building of profiles needed (at least for the ones that I have seen).

We have these on their own relay circuit, so when they eventually fail, we can just power them off from the board and mover on so we won't be left with a strobing on uncontrollable fixture over the stage. They are also on their own DMX feed from an opto, so they arent sending bad data out to other fixtures.

For cabaret style shows, local concerts, DJ rigs, etc... I think these would be fine. I have looked at getting a couple Sheheds profile fixtures so the kids can play with beam effects, gobos, etc... but there are decent used options that I will likely go with instead. I also got to demo the new Ministar from ETC and am considering those as well. What a great fixture for the price (under $3000 for a "real" moving light).

I can't see using these for a full musical.

TBSTANTO said:

I have taught the kids to change to the darkest blue as they are fading out, so it is less noticeable (and a little more complex programming, which is good for them to play with).

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I feel like the fact you can list this as an (almost) feature means you're doing something right in your teaching process. I'm definitely not there right now, but can admire that you are.

Malabaristo said:

I feel like the fact you can list this as an (almost) feature means you're doing something right in your teaching process. I'm definitely not there right now, but can admire that you are.

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Yeah I'm def stealing that idea.. we have some great fixtures, some good fixtures, and some fixtures I'm glad to have but bottom end of dimming lets you know this isn't real, we're living in the matrix.