You are on the Desktop website, Click here to go back to our mobile website
REVIEWED
REVIEWED: AFX Light Spectra-Tubes-FC
The world of lighting has evolved so much in recent years and things that were once out of reach for most DJs are now readily available at an affordable price. This includes the new Spectra Tubes FC – a set of rechargeable LED tubes from AFX Light.
First up, what do you get in the kit? Well, to call this a ‘set of lights’ is probably selling it short. It’s more of a turnkey system, meaning it’s all-in-one and ready to go straight away. AFX Light provides:
• 10 Spectra Tubes
• 10 small tripod stands
• 20 M8 rings
• 10 IR remote controls
• 10 sets of DMX cables (a set of both in and out per tube)
• a multi-way charger and DC link cables
All of this is housed in the included wooden, foam-lined flight case, where you can easily charge the lights in the case. The whole kit weighs around 55kg total and the case is easy to move thanks to the wheels on the bottom. The cases are also stackable and have handles on each side – a well-thought-out design!
Now, I know I mentioned the ‘affordable price’ at the beginning of this review, and many of you may be thinking, actually the RRP is quite high. But when you look at the included kit, I hope you can appreciate that this really is a complete system that’s reasonably priced.
This price certainly becomes more bearable when you see the eye-candy effects the Spectra Tubes create…
The tubes
Each tube contains an array of 128 LEDs split into 16 zones of 8 LEDs. This means each individual tube has 16 sections that can be controlled or operated independently, rather than the whole of the tube being a single colour. Furthermore, each 0.25W LED is RGBW, so you can mix any combination of red, green, blue and white to achieve the colour you want. Multiply that by the 16 zones and you have some great combinations you can play with to generate stunning pixel and eye-candy effects.
I like that only the front face of the tubes have light output. Other products often have LEDs both sides, which works well in some environments but not always on a stage or mobile event when you only want light going forward. It is worth mentioning that there is a single multi-colour LED on the rear that indicates different modes, but this is dim enough that it doesn’t cast light onto whatever is behind it.
The tubes are IP65-rated, meaning they’re both waterproof and dust proof, so you can use them in an outdoor setting too. They are also battery powered and feature both wireless and wired DMX options (more on these later), although the Spectra Tubes can still be operated whilst plugged in if needed.
Design and build quality
The Spectra Tubes boast a sleek, modern design that is both lightweight and durable. The tube is housed in a sturdy, translucent casing that diffuses light evenly across its surface, resulting in a smooth, consistent glow. One thing I did try was to grab the tube and give it a good squeeze, as some similar effects use a cheap LED diffuser that pops in and out. These did not! Instead, the plastic diffuser and casing took the strong grip like a pro.
Overall, the build-quality is solid, with all components feeling well-constructed and reliable. The tubes are quite chunky – with a diameter of 55mm and a per-tube weight of 2.2kg – but that’s not a bad thing, as their size and weight make them feel really robust and sturdy.
It's also worth noting that the diffuser runs the full length in front of the LEDs from top to bottom, so there’s no handle or battery section at the end of the tube. This means that, from the front, the whole tube is lit, allowing you to position multiple tubes end-to-end (with just the silver end caps separating the tubes) – great for aesthetics!
Battery and charging
When it comes to battery life, the Spectra Tubes impressed me. Each tube features an in-built (non-removeable) 8000mah battery, which is quite a hefty supply of power. Their stats specify 4-8 hours on multi-colour or up to 20 hours on a single unmixed colour, however our tests actually seemed to get more!
The review system we received was used on two events. We fully charged the kit when we received it and we sent them back still having around 40-50% on most of the tubes. This was after 7 hours of total use and whilst on wireless DMX, with in-built modes but not using static colours – quite an achievement.
It's worth adding that the tubes have three battery-power modes (named ‘limiter’ in the menu) where each option reduces the brightness of the LEDs but not by a considerable amount. We had the tubes set into M2 (mode 2) for the duration of our testing and this was still plenty bright enough for what we wanted. M3 would have been enough but we thought we’d go for the middle ground!
In terms of charging the Spectra Tubes, I love that the charger is completely removeable from the flight case, so you have the choice between charging in or outside of the case.
It’s also nice to see both PowerCon in and thru connectors on the charger, so you can link multiple chargers together if you have multiple systems. The outputs are via DC jacks which are linked to the tubes using the included DC cables (these have plenty of length on them to make charging as easy as possible). Each output of the charger also has an indicator light to help you know when the port is in charging or non-charging state.
Control options
The Spectra Tubes offer us a variety of control methods: the menu system, the IR remote, and wireless or wired DMX.
The menu system is great and proved easy to navigate, offering the standard arrangement of up/down/enter/menu buttons around a small full-colour display that’s easy to see and read in most environments. The buttons are touch buttons that do not require lots of force to operate. The screen and menu system are very straight forward, with everything indicated in clear text with icons for easy navigation.
In the menu system you can set each light to auto, sound or static. Both automatic and sound modes have 20 programs and a speed/sound sensitivity setting from 0-99. In static mode you can control the dimmer, strobe, colours (either RGBW values individually or via a colour-macro option) and also a fade/jump setting.
You can set up each light individually to do its own thing, or link them together in a master/slave configuration so that the slave tubes follow whatever setting the master tube is set to.
On the second event we opted to use the IR remote, so we didn’t have to bring a DMX controller, which also meant we could be in and out in minutes (as we were demoing them at the SEDA ShowNight!). We had all the lights linked in master/slave mode, which took a few minutes to set up after we’d had them on wireless DMX mode the night before. It was just a case of re-linking each tube to the master via the menu system. After this, each light simply mirrored the master tube.
The only main downside with the IR remote is that the sensor is on the rear of the tube next to the display, so the remote does not work from the front of the light – not a major issue for DJs because it’s likely the lights will be next to you or in front of you in your setup.
The IR remote has quite a few buttons, but the main functions are: on/off, brightness/speed, preset colour or adjustable colour mode, as well as the effect buttons that let you change between flash, strobe, fade and smooth modes (the buttons could be better named, as ‘smooth’ is really sound mode and ‘flash’ is really auto mode). It is also worth stating that the IR remote control will override all other modes, so if you are using DMX and then decide to press a button on the remote, the tubes will automatically go into IR mode and you can’t set them back to DMX with the remote.
DMX
Speaking of DMX, the Spectra Tubes can be controlled by either wired or wireless DMX. On first glance you will notice there are no XLR sockets on the tubes, so you may wonder how they can be on wired DMX. Quite cleverly AFX have used a 3.5mm socket to input and output DMX from the tubes, and each tube comes with a set of 3.5mm to 3-pin XLR adapters (both a male and female for input/output).
You simply plug the adapters into the tube and connect your DMX cabling to the XLRs on the adapter cables. I haven’t tried it myself but I do also wonder if you can wire DMX into one unit and use that tube as a transmitter to the rest. I also wonder if you can use the DMX output to carry on a DMX line, basically using the tube as a wireless transceiver – definitely something I’ll need to test!
The Spectra Tubes also have two wireless DMX modes – Guangzhou and Sweden. Sweden is standard W-DMX and Guangzhou is compatible with Chinese-type wireless systems such as the Donner DMX. It is worth noting that no wireless transmitters are included with the Spectra Tubes, so it may be a bit of trial and error to see which ones work, although AFX does offer its own transceiver too. We used one of the W-DMX transmitters that we already had in our events stock, and the tubes synced perfectly.
In the manual it also mentions using groups for wireless DMX, which looks like it means you could have up to seven different groups running at once over wireless – but only in Guangzhou mode. This would be handy if you are master/slaving the lights and wanted to control multiple groups of tubes.
If you want to control the AFX Spectra Tubes via DMX then you have three different DMX channel modes to choose from: 9-, 21- or 69-channel modes. The 9-channel mode gives you control over dimmer, strobe, RGBW, CTO (variable colour temperature), colour chase and chase speed. 21-channel mode offers dimmer, strobe, zone 1 through 16 in macro mode, CTO, colour chase and chase speed. And the 69-channel mode is where it gets interesting, as you can control each individual RGBW value of each of the 16 zones, along with a master dimmer, strobe, variable CTO, and colour chase and chase speed.
The latter is the mode we opted for, because we wanted to use them with our pixel mapper on our lighting desk. One thing we quickly realised is that in 69-channel mode you can’t put all 10 tubes on a single DMX universe, as that would be 690 channels (which exceeds the 512 channels in a single universe).
With that in mind, you could fit seven tubes in one universe if you wanted control of each tube individually, or we’d need two universes and two transmitters if we wanted to control them all individually. So instead we just paired the lights up and had pairs of the tubes set to the same DMX addresses.
Mounting and setup
The included small tripods are very simple to use; they simply screw into the end of a tube and the legs pull out. The tripods are made of metal and are quite sturdy, although you can bend them with a bit of force, so it is something to be careful with. Our AFX rep also mentioned you could use the tripod stands to push into the ground if you wanted to (for example, to use them as an anchor into grass).
The included M8 eyelets also affix in the same way as the tripods, so you can suspend the AFX Spectra Tubes using a suitable wire system.
I have sent feedback to AFX saying that I would like to see some sort of U-shaped clip system that would fix to the tube, so you could lay the tubes down without them rolling or clamp them onto something. I hope they take this feedback on board and come up with a solution, as that would really expand the mounting options.
Final thoughts
We loved having the Spectra Tubes on demo. Many of you will know that we love ‘eye-candy’ products that we really get to play with and put through their paces, so these really interested us when they were first mentioned by our rep at ISE in Barcelona. Little did we know that I and a friend who runs another local production company would partner up and order 50 tubes (five sets!) between us, after we finally saw the finished product!
In summary, the AFX Light Spectra Tubes FC is a lighting system that delivers on all fronts, making it a worthwhile addition to any lighting rig. One of the real standout features of the Spectra Tubes is their versatility. You can see them being used as part of a stage set, as ambient lighting, or as part of a more complex installation – they adapt well to all environments. The ability to link multiple units together expands its creative potential, allowing for intricate designs and synchronised effects across multiple tubes. And while it may be on the higher end of the price spectrum, the performance and reliability it offers does justify the cost.
I’d also like to mention that a comparable product to this system would be the Astera Titan Tube Kit, which is nearly twice the price (around £7,400 RRP). That kit only has 8 tubes per kit, but does have a few more accessories. It seems as if AFX Light has designed the Spectra Tubes to be a similar sort of product but at a more affordable price, bringing such a product into ‘our market’ without aiming to replace or out-do the Astera.
I personally think AFX Light has hit the nail on the head.
First up, what do you get in the kit? Well, to call this a ‘set of lights’ is probably selling it short. It’s more of a turnkey system, meaning it’s all-in-one and ready to go straight away. AFX Light provides:
• 10 Spectra Tubes
• 10 small tripod stands
• 20 M8 rings
• 10 IR remote controls
• 10 sets of DMX cables (a set of both in and out per tube)
• a multi-way charger and DC link cables
All of this is housed in the included wooden, foam-lined flight case, where you can easily charge the lights in the case. The whole kit weighs around 55kg total and the case is easy to move thanks to the wheels on the bottom. The cases are also stackable and have handles on each side – a well-thought-out design!
Now, I know I mentioned the ‘affordable price’ at the beginning of this review, and many of you may be thinking, actually the RRP is quite high. But when you look at the included kit, I hope you can appreciate that this really is a complete system that’s reasonably priced.
This price certainly becomes more bearable when you see the eye-candy effects the Spectra Tubes create…
The tubes
Each tube contains an array of 128 LEDs split into 16 zones of 8 LEDs. This means each individual tube has 16 sections that can be controlled or operated independently, rather than the whole of the tube being a single colour. Furthermore, each 0.25W LED is RGBW, so you can mix any combination of red, green, blue and white to achieve the colour you want. Multiply that by the 16 zones and you have some great combinations you can play with to generate stunning pixel and eye-candy effects.
I like that only the front face of the tubes have light output. Other products often have LEDs both sides, which works well in some environments but not always on a stage or mobile event when you only want light going forward. It is worth mentioning that there is a single multi-colour LED on the rear that indicates different modes, but this is dim enough that it doesn’t cast light onto whatever is behind it.
The tubes are IP65-rated, meaning they’re both waterproof and dust proof, so you can use them in an outdoor setting too. They are also battery powered and feature both wireless and wired DMX options (more on these later), although the Spectra Tubes can still be operated whilst plugged in if needed.
Design and build quality
The Spectra Tubes boast a sleek, modern design that is both lightweight and durable. The tube is housed in a sturdy, translucent casing that diffuses light evenly across its surface, resulting in a smooth, consistent glow. One thing I did try was to grab the tube and give it a good squeeze, as some similar effects use a cheap LED diffuser that pops in and out. These did not! Instead, the plastic diffuser and casing took the strong grip like a pro.
Overall, the build-quality is solid, with all components feeling well-constructed and reliable. The tubes are quite chunky – with a diameter of 55mm and a per-tube weight of 2.2kg – but that’s not a bad thing, as their size and weight make them feel really robust and sturdy.
It's also worth noting that the diffuser runs the full length in front of the LEDs from top to bottom, so there’s no handle or battery section at the end of the tube. This means that, from the front, the whole tube is lit, allowing you to position multiple tubes end-to-end (with just the silver end caps separating the tubes) – great for aesthetics!
Battery and charging
When it comes to battery life, the Spectra Tubes impressed me. Each tube features an in-built (non-removeable) 8000mah battery, which is quite a hefty supply of power. Their stats specify 4-8 hours on multi-colour or up to 20 hours on a single unmixed colour, however our tests actually seemed to get more!
The review system we received was used on two events. We fully charged the kit when we received it and we sent them back still having around 40-50% on most of the tubes. This was after 7 hours of total use and whilst on wireless DMX, with in-built modes but not using static colours – quite an achievement.
It's worth adding that the tubes have three battery-power modes (named ‘limiter’ in the menu) where each option reduces the brightness of the LEDs but not by a considerable amount. We had the tubes set into M2 (mode 2) for the duration of our testing and this was still plenty bright enough for what we wanted. M3 would have been enough but we thought we’d go for the middle ground!
In terms of charging the Spectra Tubes, I love that the charger is completely removeable from the flight case, so you have the choice between charging in or outside of the case.
It’s also nice to see both PowerCon in and thru connectors on the charger, so you can link multiple chargers together if you have multiple systems. The outputs are via DC jacks which are linked to the tubes using the included DC cables (these have plenty of length on them to make charging as easy as possible). Each output of the charger also has an indicator light to help you know when the port is in charging or non-charging state.
Control options
The Spectra Tubes offer us a variety of control methods: the menu system, the IR remote, and wireless or wired DMX.
The menu system is great and proved easy to navigate, offering the standard arrangement of up/down/enter/menu buttons around a small full-colour display that’s easy to see and read in most environments. The buttons are touch buttons that do not require lots of force to operate. The screen and menu system are very straight forward, with everything indicated in clear text with icons for easy navigation.
In the menu system you can set each light to auto, sound or static. Both automatic and sound modes have 20 programs and a speed/sound sensitivity setting from 0-99. In static mode you can control the dimmer, strobe, colours (either RGBW values individually or via a colour-macro option) and also a fade/jump setting.
You can set up each light individually to do its own thing, or link them together in a master/slave configuration so that the slave tubes follow whatever setting the master tube is set to.
On the second event we opted to use the IR remote, so we didn’t have to bring a DMX controller, which also meant we could be in and out in minutes (as we were demoing them at the SEDA ShowNight!). We had all the lights linked in master/slave mode, which took a few minutes to set up after we’d had them on wireless DMX mode the night before. It was just a case of re-linking each tube to the master via the menu system. After this, each light simply mirrored the master tube.
The only main downside with the IR remote is that the sensor is on the rear of the tube next to the display, so the remote does not work from the front of the light – not a major issue for DJs because it’s likely the lights will be next to you or in front of you in your setup.
The IR remote has quite a few buttons, but the main functions are: on/off, brightness/speed, preset colour or adjustable colour mode, as well as the effect buttons that let you change between flash, strobe, fade and smooth modes (the buttons could be better named, as ‘smooth’ is really sound mode and ‘flash’ is really auto mode). It is also worth stating that the IR remote control will override all other modes, so if you are using DMX and then decide to press a button on the remote, the tubes will automatically go into IR mode and you can’t set them back to DMX with the remote.
DMX
Speaking of DMX, the Spectra Tubes can be controlled by either wired or wireless DMX. On first glance you will notice there are no XLR sockets on the tubes, so you may wonder how they can be on wired DMX. Quite cleverly AFX have used a 3.5mm socket to input and output DMX from the tubes, and each tube comes with a set of 3.5mm to 3-pin XLR adapters (both a male and female for input/output).
You simply plug the adapters into the tube and connect your DMX cabling to the XLRs on the adapter cables. I haven’t tried it myself but I do also wonder if you can wire DMX into one unit and use that tube as a transmitter to the rest. I also wonder if you can use the DMX output to carry on a DMX line, basically using the tube as a wireless transceiver – definitely something I’ll need to test!
The Spectra Tubes also have two wireless DMX modes – Guangzhou and Sweden. Sweden is standard W-DMX and Guangzhou is compatible with Chinese-type wireless systems such as the Donner DMX. It is worth noting that no wireless transmitters are included with the Spectra Tubes, so it may be a bit of trial and error to see which ones work, although AFX does offer its own transceiver too. We used one of the W-DMX transmitters that we already had in our events stock, and the tubes synced perfectly.
In the manual it also mentions using groups for wireless DMX, which looks like it means you could have up to seven different groups running at once over wireless – but only in Guangzhou mode. This would be handy if you are master/slaving the lights and wanted to control multiple groups of tubes.
If you want to control the AFX Spectra Tubes via DMX then you have three different DMX channel modes to choose from: 9-, 21- or 69-channel modes. The 9-channel mode gives you control over dimmer, strobe, RGBW, CTO (variable colour temperature), colour chase and chase speed. 21-channel mode offers dimmer, strobe, zone 1 through 16 in macro mode, CTO, colour chase and chase speed. And the 69-channel mode is where it gets interesting, as you can control each individual RGBW value of each of the 16 zones, along with a master dimmer, strobe, variable CTO, and colour chase and chase speed.
The latter is the mode we opted for, because we wanted to use them with our pixel mapper on our lighting desk. One thing we quickly realised is that in 69-channel mode you can’t put all 10 tubes on a single DMX universe, as that would be 690 channels (which exceeds the 512 channels in a single universe).
With that in mind, you could fit seven tubes in one universe if you wanted control of each tube individually, or we’d need two universes and two transmitters if we wanted to control them all individually. So instead we just paired the lights up and had pairs of the tubes set to the same DMX addresses.
Mounting and setup
The included small tripods are very simple to use; they simply screw into the end of a tube and the legs pull out. The tripods are made of metal and are quite sturdy, although you can bend them with a bit of force, so it is something to be careful with. Our AFX rep also mentioned you could use the tripod stands to push into the ground if you wanted to (for example, to use them as an anchor into grass).
The included M8 eyelets also affix in the same way as the tripods, so you can suspend the AFX Spectra Tubes using a suitable wire system.
I have sent feedback to AFX saying that I would like to see some sort of U-shaped clip system that would fix to the tube, so you could lay the tubes down without them rolling or clamp them onto something. I hope they take this feedback on board and come up with a solution, as that would really expand the mounting options.
Final thoughts
We loved having the Spectra Tubes on demo. Many of you will know that we love ‘eye-candy’ products that we really get to play with and put through their paces, so these really interested us when they were first mentioned by our rep at ISE in Barcelona. Little did we know that I and a friend who runs another local production company would partner up and order 50 tubes (five sets!) between us, after we finally saw the finished product!
In summary, the AFX Light Spectra Tubes FC is a lighting system that delivers on all fronts, making it a worthwhile addition to any lighting rig. One of the real standout features of the Spectra Tubes is their versatility. You can see them being used as part of a stage set, as ambient lighting, or as part of a more complex installation – they adapt well to all environments. The ability to link multiple units together expands its creative potential, allowing for intricate designs and synchronised effects across multiple tubes. And while it may be on the higher end of the price spectrum, the performance and reliability it offers does justify the cost.
I’d also like to mention that a comparable product to this system would be the Astera Titan Tube Kit, which is nearly twice the price (around £7,400 RRP). That kit only has 8 tubes per kit, but does have a few more accessories. It seems as if AFX Light has designed the Spectra Tubes to be a similar sort of product but at a more affordable price, bringing such a product into ‘our market’ without aiming to replace or out-do the Astera.
I personally think AFX Light has hit the nail on the head.
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 127, Pages 84-87.
