Lighting Brands - Who Should You Buy Your Lights From?

[disbjohn]

I would love to have some Clay Paky sharpy's!

[ksmalk08]

Is there any reason LeMaitre Special Effects didn't make it onto the list?
This is a "Lighting/Visual Effects" forum... and pyrotechnics are definitely a visual effect.

Projectors are definitely a visual effect as well, and are even used by Mobile DJs quite a bit. No Christie or Barco in the list? Of course that then opens the door to a whole slew of lower-end companies that do your typical office-grade projectors... and that list could get long.

Also - A lot of the companies listed as "small theatrical grade", can definitely do tour-grade, architectural, or large theatrical stuff as well. Maybe a clarification on the nomenclature there? I mean just about all of those brands under "small theatrical grade" make high level tour-grade products.

Some more brands that I know less about, and have seen less of in the market - but still appear occasionally in the pro level used market, and on pro level discussions:

JB Lighting (http://www.jblighting.com)

Lightronics (http://www.lightronics.com/about_us.html) maybe somewhere between the OK and Good list

Acclaim Lighting (http://www.acclaimlighting.com/#/about-us/4537512803)

ElektraLite (http://www.elektraled.com/elektraLite_LED_pro_line.htm) they are part of Group One Limited, which also distrubutes very high end sound gear like XTA, and MC2, it would be logical that they distribute at least decent lighting too (http://www.g1limited.com/)

Pulsar (http://www.pulsarlight.com/News/tabid/244/Default.aspx) also part of the Group One network

Also a good link to look over for brands:
https://www.ip.philips.com/services/...id=100&part=11

That is a list of all the companies that Philips is a partner with to distribute their LEDs. generally if a company is putting Philips LED's in it - you could at least give some more credibility to it than some of the random unknown Chinese stuff.

On that list is a company called "TEI Lighting" which I've seen in the lower-end market a few times, maybe put them in somewhere between "Ehhh" and OK
Also a company called "Techni-Lux" that I've seen before, maybe between OK and Good List.

I have seen a Chinese company called "G-Lites or GLites" (Grace Corporation) a few times and apparently their reputation is good for a Chinese one. http://www.g-lites.com/products.html Maybe someone can give some more info on them.

[Synaxis]

Is there any reason LeMaitre Special Effects didn't make it onto the list?
This is a "Lighting/Visual Effects" forum... and pyrotechnics are definitely a visual effect.

Projectors are definitely a visual effect as well, and are even used by Mobile DJs quite a bit. No Christie or Barco in the list? Of course that then opens the door to a whole slew of lower-end companies that do your typical office-grade projectors... and that list could get long.

My main focus of the topic was strictly "Lighting Brands," as per the title.

Like you said, there are MANY projector manufactures out there, so I don't even want to dive into that direction.

And LeMaitre, yes pyrotechnics are a visual effect, but again, are not considered lighting

Besides, I doubt anyone here would even be using pyrotechnics to begin with.

Thanks for the lists ksmalk08 . Any recommendations on classification? Maybe I should just move all of "The Best" into the higher tier. But then again, Martin manufactures some lower end products as well, so perhaps it should belong in both groups?

[DJStevieRay]

That is a list of all the companies that Philips is a partner with to distribute their LEDs. generally if a company is putting Philips LED's in it - you could at least give some more credibility to it than some of the random unknown Chinese stuff.

I agree to a point, so.....
Blizzard Lighting Joins Philips Electronics’ LED Luminaires Licensing Program