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[Debbie Dunkley]

Yes, at last nights gig we lit the front of stage with 4 Blizzard Puck3's (which are about 60% as bright as the Q12As (and a published coverage angle of 25 degrees, 29 degrees "field") Stage was about 22' wide between trees, and we has them 11 feet in the air.  We aimed the Pucks downward, we have 4 people in front so each got their own front light aimed close to their mic or primary standing spot.  The wash from all the lights covered the front of the stage with no dead spots and even caught some of the drummer (who usually gets one or two Q12s from the back truss).  I am attaching a pic with a blue scene, fairly dark compared to most of our scenes.  Q12A's would have been brighter in the front, but we have moved them all to the back truss.

In my experience height (to a reasonable point) is your friend with front or front/side stage lighting, otherwise it is too much in the performers eyes and requires more or wider lighting to provide adequate coverage, and just looks tackier in general.

Thanks……that makes sense. I'm looking forward to the arrival of the Q12 so I can check it out compared to the other two. 
I'll look at the differences in stand height so I can see exactly what you mean. My stands are 12 feet although in my studio, the ceiling will prevent full height but I'll still be able to make some comparisons..

[Debbie Dunkley]

The Q12 came today.
So I set up a SlimPar, a Mega 64 and the Q12 side by side in my studio and compared each one with each color and function.
The SlimPar was as usual poor and shed little light.
Then the ADJ Mega 64. Much brighter and defined. Slightly wider field.
Then the Q12..OMG…RETINA BURN. No joke - this thing is crazy. I had no idea it was going to be that bright and wasn't expecting it. The main thing though was that it lit up the whole room. I thought based on what everyone had said and what is claimed that the field  angle was going to be horribly narrow - not at all.
So for brightness the Q12 wins hands down.
Quality wise, it is about the same as the ADJ .
One of the things I don't like about the ADJ is that you can't daisy chain standard iec power cables from them- they require male/female iec cables which I now have to go purchase. Bit annoying. The Q12 uses normal iec power cables.
I had a hard time going through the programs on the Q12. My other lights regardless of brand all are very similar in how the programming works  but I found the Q12 to be a bit complicated. The DMX programming is easy so I did that instead (thats what Ill be using anyway so no big deal).

Anyway, Im going to put 2 ADJ's and 2 Q12's on a tree and see if there is any benefit of blending the 2 brands with the  ADJ's having more of a spot than the Q12's - if not I'd be silly not to get all Q12's - I'd get away with 8 easily….

[Rick Powell]

Thought I told you so about the soft edge of the beam.

The programming is a little funky and unintuitive, but basically wadda you do for dmx...you set a Channel address (isnt it "Chnd" or something) and use the up/down buttons to get the correct number between 1 and 512, and then "enter" and you're done.  and depending on 4/7 channel mode, you have 1st channel for red, 2nd for green, 3rd for blue, 4th for amber, and the other 3 I never use.  Every once in awile I will take a few lights out for an acoustic gig w/o a controller and go manual ("Nanu" or something) and then you have to page thru your R, G, B, A settings and adjust between 1 and 255 on the can to get your preferred static light color setting.  They also have a setting I forget where you can draw from 8 or so preset colors.

[Debbie Dunkley]

Thought I told you so about the soft edge of the beam.

The programming is a little funky and unintuitive, but basically wadda you do for dmx...you set a Channel address (isnt it "Chnd" or something) and use the up/down buttons to get the correct number between 1 and 512, and then "enter" and you're done.  and depending on 4/7 channel mode, you have 1st channel for red, 2nd for green, 3rd for blue, 4th for amber, and the other 3 I never use.  Every once in awile I will take a few lights out for an acoustic gig w/o a controller and go manual ("Nanu" or something) and then you have to page thru your R, G, B, A settings and adjust between 1 and 255 on the can to get your preferred static light color setting.  They also have a setting I forget where you can draw from 8 or so preset colors.

Yes Rick - thank you…you did tell me that and it was one of the reasons I went ahead and tried one for myself…
I really am very pleased with the performance ie brightness and the beam angle …..but yes the programming……WHAT??? I see what they are doing in making the RGB intensity very controllable but they have taken away the 'quick set up' that I like  to have on the fly. Like you said, DMX is very straight forward and it is generally all I use but if I had any issues and needed to simply program the Q12 to just wash white  for example..I'd be stumped I think. Anyway, I'll spend more time with it and I'm sure I'll get it down………..thanks again..

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Yes Rick - thank you…you did tell me that and it was one of the reasons I went ahead and tried one for myself…
I really am very pleased with the performance ie brightness and the beam angle …..but yes the programming……WHAT??? I see what they are doing in making the RGB intensity very controllable but they have taken away the 'quick set up' that I like  to have on the fly. Like you said, DMX is very straight forward and it is generally all I use but if I had any issues and needed to simply program the Q12 to just wash white  for example..I'd be stumped I think. Anyway, I'll spend more time with it and I'm sure I'll get it down………..thanks again..

Hi Debbie.  I did a review of the Q12A about 3 years ago: https://soundforums.net/threads/1938-Blizzard-Q12A-RGBA-LED-Par and a comparison to the fixture I ended up going with: https://soundforums.net/threads/2419-Chauvet-SlimPar-Pro-RGBA-Review

I have a suspicion that the Q12A of 2014 is slightly different than the Q12A of 2011.  If you are interested and have time, I'd love to see if you notice the same things I did back in the day.

[Rick Powell]

I have a suspicion that the Q12A of 2014 is slightly different than the Q12A of 2011.  If you are interested and have time, I'd love to see if you notice the same things I did back in the day.

TJ- I didn't notice much difference when I recently ordered another Q12A.  I have several 2012 models and a 2014.  Same small diameter hole in the main yoke, programming and beam appearance looks identical. 

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