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REVIEWED
REVIEWED: CHAUVET DJ Obsession HP
The original CHAUVET DJ Obsession was a great unit – popular too – but it needed something to make it truly amazing. So, does this new “HP” variant cut the mustard? Does it address the original’s shortcomings? Is it the ultimate moonflower? Let’s find out.

I’ve always been a massive fan of moonflowers. Don’t get me wrong, I like moving heads too. But whilst they’re very visual and they create stunning effects, sometimes you just want a simple, honest disco light that you can point somewhere and leave to do its thing.

This is where the moonflower wins hands down. The effect they create is just so cool and simple (a single light source shone through a gobo onto a dish of mirrors that spins around). For me, they’re the original classic disco light. And from Abstract Twisters to EVL Spin, iShows to Power Flowers, pretty much all of them have been in the back of my car at some point over the last 25 years.

Enter the CHAUVET DJ Obsession HP. Where the original Obsession had a 60W cool-white LED, this new variant includes a much brighter 100W source. Perhaps the HP stands for high power? The CHAUVET DJ website doesn’t say. But either way, this more powerful source can only mean a brighter projected image.

Shape wise, the Obsession HP is slightly more rectangular than the original. Sure, it’s still got some crazy angles, but it’s much nicer to look at. The unit also fits into the same CHAUVET DJ CHS-40 VIP Gear Bag as the original, so if you have a couple of those knocking around then you won’t need to buy new bags in order to protect your investment. It’s not a heavy lump to move around either, weighing in at just under 5kg, which is hardly noticeable.

There are a couple of things that immediately stand out about the Obsession HP. Firstly, the hanging bracket is very long at around 6”, which at first seemed too large for what is needed. However, upon further investigation, I discovered that the bracket enables you to mount the light on a vertical pole and still point it forwards. If you are hanging one or more of them on a horizontal bar, you might want to cut them down, though you will lose that flexibility.

The other thing you’ll notice is the lack of manual focus ring on the front of the unit. When I first got the Obsession HP, I figured the reason was because there was some kind of fancy built-in focus system that you could access via DMX. I can confirm there isn’t, so we can only assume that the optics inside the Obsession HP have been so finely tuned to their optimal settings that a focus ring could compromise its output in some way.
Around the back you’ve got the usual inputs and outputs: IEC power in and out, and 3-pin XLR DMX in and out. There’s a small four-character display that you can use to change the Obsession HP’s operating mode, set the DMX address and so on. There is also a huge fan, useful for drawing the heat away from that 100W LED source.

On top of the unit you’ll find a little trapdoor secured by thumbscrews. Once inside, you can easily swap the gobos. That’s right, in the CHAUVET DJ Obsession HP you can swap the gobos! (Hopefully this will stop all the haters, moaning about the Batman gobo, which, by the way, is not included.)

CHAUVET DJ does however provide seven removable gobos, but I was slightly confused by the lack of “open” being one of them. This may be because the gobos now rotate independently of the dish, so CHAUVET DJ wanted to include gobos that create great mid-air effects. There is a rather cool rose-style gobo that is great for first dances. I can already hear the shouts: “What about hearts? What about snowflakes?” Well, don’t worry, you’re covered, because CHAUVET DJ have included a holiday gobo pack that includes hearts, stars, snowflakes, bats, ghosts, a Christmas tree and more (but still no open gobo!). Don’t like any of those options? Not a problem, just get the exact 18.5mm gobos you need from your favourite supplier and you’re good to go!

As well as the gobo wheel, the CHAUVET DJ Obsession HP offers you a separate colour wheel, featuring six colours plus white. You also have the option to create split colours. Thanks to the 100W cool-white LED source, these colours were super vibrant and rich. I did find that the red looked a bit washed out. But then again, this is not something unique to the Obsession HP; in my opinion, unless you get into much bigger 200W+ LED sources, red always looks a bit “meh”.

Mechanically, the Obsession HP is a superb disco light. The dish and gobo rotation can be slowed down by DMX to almost no movement whatsoever, with no juddering at all. It’s totally silky smooth, so with some haze you’re able to achieve some awesome effects.

In terms of DMX control, you’ve got a choice of 2 or 8 channels. In 2-channel mode you can access the built-in programs and adjust their speed and sound sensitivity. In 8-channel mode you can still access these programs but you also gain full control over the dimmer, shutter, colour and gobo wheel, gobo and dish rotation.

If DMX isn’t your bag, then you’ve always got sound-to-light mode. Alternatively, you can access the built-in programs directly through the menu system, or there’s the IRC-6 remote, which isn’t included (though I’m sure you have a drawer full of them somewhere!).

Although I like sound-to-light mode, I do still enjoy some control. In my lighting app of choice (Light Rider) I was able to map the dish rotation to the PAN channel of a moving head, so that when I put the lighting app into random movement mode, I was still able to get a reasonably random dish rotation in sound-to-light mode whilst still having some control over the gobos and colours. If you wanted to, you could also map the gobo rotation to a “tilt” channel to get random movement on that too.

One of the best features of the CHAUVET DJ Obsession HP is coverage (the size of the projected image). A big issue with the original Obsession was the coverage angle, which was really quite narrow at just 44 degrees. This meant that you’d often need two or three units to get a decent level of function room coverage. Now, you’ll be pleased to know that the Obsession HP offers a jaw-dropping 116 degrees of coverage – almost three times bigger than the original model! It’s so wide that I’m confident you’ll only need one unit to fill your dancefloor.

There is a small compromise to this much wider coverage. Even though the Obsession HP features a 100W LED source, the projected effect can look a little washed out from a distance. I tested the unit in a couple of different venues. At one, the back wall was 40ft away and the gobos were nice and bright. At another, the back wall was maybe 90-100ft away and, whilst the gobo was maybe 20ft wide, that brightness was not nearly as noticeable. That said, if you’re pointing down at the dance floor directly in front of you and it’s around 18ft-20ft deep, the Obsession HP really shines – literally! It’s simply perfect.

To conclude, I really like the CHAUVET DJ Obsession HP. For those who operate all-white DJ rigs, at the time of writing (August 2021) there is no option for white housing available, though it’s early days and I’m sure Chauvet will have something in the pipeline. Still, this is a fantastic unit and well worth considering.

Just when you thought the classic moonflower effect had reached the peak of its development, CHAUVET DJ comes along and takes it to another level with rotating gobos (so no more upside-down hearts!) and amazingly wide dancefloor coverage, all for a very reasonable price.
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 109, Pages 80-82.
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