Martin MAC Aura Raven XIP

For those familiar with the Martin range, the MAC Aura Raven XIP is basically a big Aura XIP, about the same size as the Quantum Wash, but 50% brighter. It is a large face LED moving head wash light. It can be pixel mapped, video mapped and has a broad range of features and capabilities. It is one of the more spectacular lights on the market today.

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Construction

The IP54 rating is great; a lot of the new range of Martin fixtures are being released with an IP54 rating, and becoming much more common across other brands too. Will we see a day soon where all high-end lighting fixtures have a higher IP rating?

Weighing in at 28.8kg, it definitely feels like a two-person lift. It has dimensions of 603mm (h) x 528mm (w) x 285mm (d). The frontal lens diameter of 343mm sees it classed as a large face wash light. Just for reference, here are some of the lens sizes for a few of the fixtures in the current Martin range:

• MAC One frontal lens: 150mm
• MAC Aura XIP frontal lens: 196mm
• MAC Aura Raven XIP frontal lens: 343mm

I think most large face wash lights look good, and the MAC Aura Raven XIP is no different. The lens has the same ‘bubble’ look as lot of the Martin LED wash lights; think Quantum Wash and Aura XB. It does have a rugged yet stylish feel to it as well.

Like most Martin lights it is aesthetically a more conservative design which tends to age well, even in a landscape of fast-moving technology and trends.

Optics, Colour, and Brightness

The MAC Aura Raven XIP features a 24,500 lumen output. It seems brighter in person, and that might have something to do with it being a large face wash light, or maybe it’s the many different ways you can measure lumen output. Like the Aura range, the MAC Aura Raven XIP features the main light source as well as the ‘aura’ back light. The main light source is 37 40W RGBL (Red, Green, Blue, Lime) LEDs. The aura light source features 234 0.25W RGB LEDs. Each LED on both the main light source and the aura can be individually controlled.

The main light source and the aura backlight has a virtual colour wheel with 48 colour presets and variable colour temperature control ranging from 2,000K all the way out to 12,850K. At default it has a Colour Rendering Index (CRI) score of 75. It can be optimised to achieve a score of 86.

The colours are deep and rich. The white light is a very good soft white. It has a choice of four dimming curves, which may not seem like a huge deal, but it definitely makes a difference with a light like this. It has a lumen to weight ratio of 851 lm/kg, which is not bad at all.

Applications and Features

The Martin MAC Aura Raven XIP is a very high end wash light. Large scale concerts and big budget broadcast would be the best suited applications. Any five-star venue that needs a wash light that doubles up as an eye candy fixture would be a good home.

You can video map these and run content through them. It makes for some really cool looks and blurs the lines between a lighting fixture and a video item. It can be controlled by Martin P3 visual control, and when using them for effects or running them through a media server, they are best used en-masse.

As it is a large face wash light, don’t expect the zoom ratio number to be as impressive. The actual zoom range itself is 9.7° – 50°. It also has motorised pan and tilt with a pan range of 540° and a tilt range of 250°.

Control and Programming

You can’t run the fixture in full extended (called Plaid) mode with a DMX cable. In full extended mode, it takes up a DMX footprint of 851 channels. For reference, the industry standard grandMA3 full size lighting console includes 20,480 control parameters as standard. This means that you could run only 20 MAC Aura Raven XIPs in full extended mode before you needed to add nodes or NPUs to increase your parameter limits. This amount of control means the eye candy stuff you can do with this light is next level.

Are we about to enter an era in stage lighting where we see traditional 5-pin DMX cable phased out and replaced by runs of Cat6? If more lights start to follow the lead of the MAC Aura Raven XIP, we very well could.

With a light this feature-rich it goes without saying that the better your programmer/ operator and the more time you have, the more you will be able to get out of this light. Compatible control protocols for the Raven XIP include DMX, RDM, Art-Net, RDM over Art-Net, sACN and Martin P3.

The six DMX modes available are Compact (22 channel), Basic (38 channel), Extended (149 channel), Ludicrous (266 channel), Plaid (851 channel), and Compact Direct (22 channel). Just about all the parameters are 16-bit controllable as opposed to 8-bit. 16-bit controllable parameters include beam and aura dimming, beam colour mixing, zoom, beamshaper indexing, pan and tilt.

If you are having a look at this light, make sure you check out the range of inbuilt effects and macros. They could save you a whole heap of time programming. They include quite realistic effects for things like water, fire and lightning. Step through them one by one; it really gives you a glimpse at what is possible with the Mac Martin Raven XIP.

Verdict

I love it. We have a light that can do so much that you can’t physically put it on one DMX Universe. For wash lights, it’s the highest of high end. With the macros, effects and pixel mapping capabilities, it really pushes the envelope on what we call a lighting fixture.

This light is arguably one of, if not the best large face wash light on the market today. If that is what you are looking for, make sure you check out the Martin Mac Aura Raven XIP.

Product Info: www.martin.com/en/products/mac-aura-raven-xip

Distributor Australia and New Zealand: www.showtech.com.au