New in the Fleet: Martin MAC Aura XIP
A wash light is usually supposed to disappear — it puts color on faces and scenery, and the fixture itself hangs overhead as a black cylinder nobody is meant to look at.
That stops working the second a room gets photographed. On the wide shot of a general session, or in the recap video that goes out the following week, the truss is in frame whether the design planned for it or not, and a row of dark cylinders reads as equipment.
The Martin MAC Aura XIP is built to be looked at. Sixty of them just went into our fleet.
The ring is the point
Twelve RGBW filaments wrap the front lens, and each one takes its own color and its own level. That is the difference between a backlight and a graphic. A backlight glows. Twelve separate sources against a dark lens background can chase around the ring, split into halves, sit at a color the beam is not, or strobe on their own while the wash underneath holds steady.
On a wide shot that turns a truss line into a design element. The rig stops being the thing holding the lights up and becomes part of what the room looks like, which is the difference between a photo that sells the event and a photo of some people at tables.
The beam pixels too; seven 60 W RGBW cells behind a 196 mm lens, each individually addressable, so one fixture can hold two colors at once or run a chase inside its own beam. Nineteen controllable points of light per unit, all of it addressable from a standard lighting desk in the wider channel modes.
Indoors or outdoors, the choice is yours
The XIP is IP54-rated — the first wash in its class built for outdoor use — so a ballroom rig on Friday can be a pool deck rig on Saturday. Rain, dust, desert wind: no weather scramble, no separate outdoor inventory, no downgrade in the look when the event steps outside. At 19.7 pounds, it’s also the smallest and lightest outdoor-rated wash in its category, which your riggers and your truck pack will both notice.
And because we bought sixty, these aren’t accent pieces. Full-stage systems, floor packages, truss toners, rig-wide pixel chases — one matched, factory-calibrated inventory deep enough to design with, not just sprinkle in.
The specs that matter
- Light source: 7 x 60 W RGBW beam pixels, 12 x 4 W RGBW aura filaments
- Output: 6,000 lm wide, 4,500 lm narrow, 360,000 cd peak intensity
- Zoom: 6.3° to 35.3° beam angle, 8.8° to 50.4° field angle, 1:6 ratio
- Color: 1,000K to 12,850K calibrated, green and magenta shift, 48 virtual color presets, optional high CRI / TM-30 / TLCI mode
- Pixel control: individual RGB on all 7 beam pixels and all 12 aura filaments
- Control: DMX, RDM, Art-Net, sACN
- Channel modes: 20, 36, 57, or 93
- Movement: 540° pan, 220° tilt, 16-bit
- Power: powerCON TRUE1 TOP in and thru, 340 W max, 285 W typical at 120 V
- Noise: 34.4 dB(A) regulated fan, 25.2 dB(A) on the low setting
- Rating: IP54, rated for indoor and outdoor use, ambient 41°F to 104°F
- Fixture: 19.7 lb, 13.3 x 15.0 x 8.9 in
- Rigging: two omega brackets included, single M12 clamp point
Sixty units, rental ready, cased six to a road case.
Why it’s in the fleet
Most of what we light is a room where somebody is talking into a microphone. The Aura XIP runs at 25.2 dB(A) on its low fan setting. That is a full wash rig hanging over an open mic and nothing showing up in the audio track, which is the whole reason a fixture like this earns a spot in a corporate package.
Then it goes outside. Martin sealed the electronics and left the cooling path exposed, so the fixture carries an outdoor rating without the weight, the noise, or the bulk that usually comes with one. All in a form factor that is sub-twenty pounds.
Working on a stage plot? Call us before the design is locked and we will show you what the ring can do.
