GoldenStar D-RGB1000 - do I dare order one?

[andylama]

I just got an email out of the blue, from Mimi at GoldenStarLaser, with their latest price sheets.

Odd that this unit doesn't show up in the series grouping on their website, but it is on the price sheet:
http://goldenstarlaser.com/index.php...arch=D-RGB1000

At $400, it sounds too cheap to be even halfway decent (even the 3W version is only $800)...but I've seen that GoldenStar is regarded fairly well around here.
It looks like they are claiming that it has Analog Modulation ("ANG Modulation") which is very appealing to me.

Does anyone have a model from the D-RGBxxxx ("Disco") series? Is it decent? Is it really analog modulated?
...and (maybe most importantly), if I order one, will it actually make it to my doorstep, or will it be confiscated by Customs?
(I live in Arizona, if that matters)

Thanks much in advance for your advice.

Andy

[swamidog]

if you live in arizona and want to use the laser outside of your living room, i would make fully sure it has a cdrh / fda variance.

it's quite blue heavy. i'd expect about .5 (ish) watts of white (ish). there's really not enough specs there to have an educated opinion on the quality of the projector. i'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's crap.

[mixedgas]

The low end analog driver from Goldenstar has almost 1.3 volts of threshold in analog mode. I have the 3.4 Watt brick with the mixed analog/ttl drivers. So if you try to drive it with Pangolin, tuning the Palette is um, interesting...

Steve

[andylama]

if you live in arizona and want to use the laser outside of your living room, i would make fully sure it has a cdrh / fda variance.

it's quite blue heavy. i'd expect about .5 (ish) watts of white (ish). there's really not enough specs there to have an educated opinion on the quality of the projector. i'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's crap.

Actually, I intend to use it only inside my home, for my own amusement.
I'm gonna assume it is NOT a varianced unit, and as such, my bigger concern was the unit getting confiscated by customs, or something along those lines.

[andylama]

The low end analog driver from Goldenstar has almost 1.3 volts of threshold in analog mode. I have the 3.4 Watt brick with the mixed analog/ttl drivers. So if you try to drive it with Pangolin, tuning the Palette is um, interesting...

Steve

Hi Steve,

Could you elaborate on that a bit? Interesting in what way? (I get the sarcasm, but I want to know how this low-endness manifests in actual usage)
In other words, exactly HOW does this unit suck?
I want to determine if it sucks in ways that I wouldn't care about, or is it truly a waste of money?

FWIW, I want to use it with LaserOS/DAC for real-time music-reactive abstract generation.

Thanks

[swamidog]

"interesting" in the way that it negatively impacts color modulation.

i've worked with those modules. they're not great.

LaserOS/DAC is a fun little widget and the music reactive features are better than i expected. The dac hardware will also work with LSX if you decide you want to start doing show programming.

Hi Steve,

Could you elaborate on that a bit? Interesting in what way? (I get the sarcasm, but I want to know how this low-endness manifests in actual usage)
In other words, exactly HOW does this unit suck?
I want to determine if it sucks in ways that I wouldn't care about, or is it truly a waste of money?

FWIW, I want to use it with LaserOS/DAC for real-time music-reactive abstract generation.

Thanks