I met a cool sibling of a good friend this weekend who is working as a production electrician in New York City. After breakfast and coffee, we got to chatting about fixtures and favorites and that kind of geek speak. Martin’s Mac 2000 came up, and where I love the Mac 2K, my friend’s sister did not. Her complaint was that the Martin line is not a very good product line, and I had to naturally disagree. The main comparison was to the Vari*Lite line of fixtures – for which I have a special place in my heart. The optics are great, the output is great, and the fixture is smooth and reliable. However, as a designer and also someone who has had both hands knee deep in both of these fixture lines, I can’t say that the Mac 2000 is a “crappy” fixture. I’ve been all over the globe with these fixtures (Mac 2K), and I love them. I’d probably rather have Vari*Lite fixtures, but if I had nothing but Mac 2K’s available, I still feel like I could design and program a rockin’ show.
What are your thoughts on the Mac 2000? Profile, Performance, or Wash, whatever model you know. Please post in the comments, I really want your opinions! Am I the only person who still values Mac 2000’s?
I have looked all over but can’t find it. Maybe you know. What is the difference between the Mac 2K Perfomance and Performance II fixtures?
Thank you.
Hi Rolando, thanks for commenting!
The major difference between the Mac 2000 Performance and Performance II varieties was the addition of a beam expander to the prism wheel, and some clean up redesign – like cleaning up the PCB, the wiring harnesses, etc. The ballast also was changed from magnetic to fully electronic.
I hope that helps!
I love the Mac 2000s. They’re a great workhorse fixture. My biggest complaint by FAR is the stock gobos suck in the Profile – there’s like 4 that are essentially the same thing. (Space sun, pipe dream, king star, jet fan). Other than that, they’re great. They’re easy to fix, from a tech standpoint, although the shutters tend to get out of calibration fairly often. The washes are nice, I love the “open the internal lens” mode for that extra kick.
I’ll still pick VLs if the money is there, but overall the Mac 2ks are reliable and look great.
Personally i am not a big fan on anything made by martin. my tour uses mac2k mac 700, maxxyz console and the maxedia. the mac 2ks just came back from a refurb from martin and upon start up had 6 of the 24 with errors and 1 with stars of death. both consoles are glitchy and like to wig out from time to time and well my media server is well iffy at best.(have load of video card issues with it) what ever happened to doing one thing great instead of doing many things mediocre. if i had to choose a fixture it would be vl or paky all the way
Hi,
I would like to know that the difference is between the mac 2k profile and performance. Thanks.
I am on a show designing it, I have 60 Martin and vl fixtures. I got this page when I googled mac 2000 gobo suck. I can’t find a pretty look, thank god I have mac 3s and vl3500!
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