You are on the Desktop website, Click here to go back to our mobile website
We use cookies to offer you the best service possible. By using our site you agree to the use of cookies.
REVIEWED
REVIEWED: Equinox Fusion 200 Zoom Spot
It was just a few years ago when small moving heads such as the Equinox Fusion Spot were super popular. Every weekend, Facebook would be littered with images of DJs showing off their latest miniature purchase standing proud on top of a truss podium sending out 12W of pure lighting power into the ether. At the end of the night, they’d pop the lights back into their trouser pockets and go home. However, these days things are different… very different.

You see… 12W is fine for most venues. They look pretty cute as they spin around and bob up and down. Aunt Edna doesn’t get offended too much when they point straight at her and, under DMX, they’re reasonably controllable. The best bit is that the price makes them both a very affordable and attractive purchase.

However, ever since these borrower-sized fixtures first hit the market, I couldn’t help but notice that everything seemed to be getting bigger. DJ booths were getting bigger, wider and more extravagant. Controllers had shifted away from the popular 19” rack mount style into huge, wide control surfaces much like you would find on the Starship Enterprise. And lighting too was starting to eat all the pies.

Move on a few years and everything now seems to be supersize! 12W moving heads are a dim and distant memory. A quick look around social media will tell you that you’re not a proper DJ if your moving heads don’t have a 100W LED inside. But even that benchmark is now being shifted, movers powered by the spawn of Sirius itself are now becoming affordable to the mobile DJ and it just so happens that I have one of these fixtures on my test bench.

The Equinox Fusion 200 Zoom Spot is the latest piece of eye candy from those lovely lads and lasses oop’t North at the Prolight Concepts Group. I spent a bit of time looking over the unit at the recent BPM show in Solihull and I liked what I saw, especially when I discovered that they sell for less than £600 each. So I was excited to try it out for myself out in a real-life gig environment.

At just over 12kg, this unit is not particularly svelte, but the build quality is good and it’s really easy to move around thanks to the two handles on either side of the base. Looks-wise, its soft plastic case really gives it a luxurious feel and, as moving heads go, I think it’s rather good looking.

On the front you have a fantastic full-colour display allowing you to easily access all of the Fusion 200 Zoom Spot’s configuration options, while around the back you’ll find locking PowerCon sockets for mains power input and thru as well as 3-pin DMX input and output sockets. The addition of a power switch is most welcome, however if you are planning to install these somewhere like in the roof of a marquee, or on a high overhead truss, you might get a little bit annoyed if you forget to switch them on before you winch them up!

So, this is all well and good, but you really want to know about what’s inside, right? Well, it will come as no surprise that the 200W cool white LED engine is bright enough for any type of gig the average mobile DJ would ever throw at it. This really is an incredibly bright fixture.

In terms of beam manipulation, the built-in motorised zoom function offers an 11-25-degree beam angle range, allowing you to alter the width of the projected beam significantly. This is great if you want to create ambient lighting effects with wide GOBO projections early doors and then, as the party gets started, switch to pin-sharp laser-like beams for mid-air effects. These look great, especially when you take advantage of the two rotating prisms – 6-facet circular and 5-facet linear – which allow you to create some really neat effects.

Colour wheel-wise, you get seven colours plus open to choose from. The 200W LED really makes the colours pop too, even the red and yellow, which can sometimes be a little bit ‘meh’. When it comes to GOBOs, you get plenty of choice. There is one static GOBO wheel with seven patterns, plus open, and a secondary rotating wheel with seven interchangeable GOBOs plus open. Swapping them out is a simple affair: remove a couple of screws, pop the lid back and Bob’s your uncle!

Changes between colours and GOBOs are quick and effortless, while having two GOBO wheels together with the two prisms allows you to create some insane mid-air effects, especially in locations where haze is not a problem. Having said that, the only person this is probably going to impress is YOU as everyone else will be too busy dancing to care!

The unit comes pre-programmed with four built-in shows, one of which is forward-facing and keeps all movements concentrated towards the dancefloor. In the menu options you’ll find settings for running units as Master or Slave, adjusting sound sensitivity and reversed pan and tilt, etc. So if you’re not into DMXing your fixtures, you can literally just plug these heads in, turn them on and leave them to it!

For those who do like more control and use DMX, you have the choice between three modes using 2, 14 or 18 channels. The 2-channel option simply allows remote selection of the unit’s internal shows and the sensitivity of the in-built mic, while the other two modes give you access to all of the Fusion 200 Zoom Spot’s features. The 18-channel variant adds in fine pan and tilt control as well as access to the built-in shows. This is useful if you like to control your fixtures to achieve nice slow movements at the start of the night or for the first dance, for example, but are then happy to leave them running ‘sound-to-light’ for the rest of the evening.

The pan and tilt motion, especially at this price point, is insane. The speed and accuracy of movement is amazing and I found the fixture to be very quiet and unobtrusive. I also really like the built-in variable-speed strobe effect; it is both very bright and intense, perfect for when you feel like dropping a bit of Jive Bunny!

If you’re looking to upgrade your lighting, maybe from some of the lesser-powered units I spoke about at the beginning of this review, then the Fusion 200 Zoom Spot is worth every single penny. It looks great, it operates well and will certainly give you many years of good service.

As mobile DJs, we are often striving to find smaller kit to make it easier to carry around, however there are some circumstances where bigger is still better. Consider that there once was a time when it was cool to have a tiny mobile phone (Nokia 8210 anyone?) but look where we are now with these giant roof-tiles we carry around in our pockets! As I said at the beginning, there seems to be a revival in the popularity of bigger kit among mobile DJs and, considering the huge difference in features and LED power offered by the latest crop of fixtures hitting the market, it’s easy to see why.

However, as the old saying goes… it’s not the size that matters…
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 98, Pages 82-83.
UPCOMING EVENTS
BPM DJ Show 2024
12 / 10 / 2024 - 13 / 10 / 2024
Photo Booth Expo London
13 / 10 / 2024 - 14 / 10 / 2024
VIEW THE FULL CALENDAR
BOOK STORE FEATURED PRODUCT
HOW TO PRICE YOUR PLATYPUS

BY DAVID ABBOTT

£5.00 (INC P&P)
More
VISIT THE BOOK STORE