If you've read any of my previous ramblings in this fine magazine, you'll know that I bang on about moving heads quite a lot. That's not my fault, it's yours. A quick scroll through any DJ group on social media these days and you'll see plinth after plinth after plinth, each one topped with a little wiggling head, all pointed at a dance floor that nobody's dancing on yet.

The moving head has well and truly taken over and the manufacturers know it. So along comes Chauvet DJ with not one, not two, but a whole new family of them called the Sentinel range. I've got three of them sat in front of me; the Sentinel Spot Q60 ILS, the Sentinel Wash Q120 and the Sentinel Wash Q7Z ILS. One spot, two washes, and a sneaky little twist that we'll get to in a bit.

The idea, as far as I can tell, is a compact, affordable, mobile-friendly set of fixtures that all sing from the same hymn sheet. Or at least, MOST of them do. Let's crack on. Chauvet DJ Sentinel Spot Q60 ILS We'll start with the spot because, let's face it, this is the one most of you will have already added to your basket before reading a single word of this review.

The Sentinel Spot Q60 ILS is a moving head spot built around a single 60w RGBW quad-colour LED. CHAUVET DJ SENTINEL RANGE Now, regular readers will know that I've always been a fan of a decent colour-mixing spot because it means no clunky colour wheel and no nasty "split second of black" as the wheel rotates between colours. With RGBW you just glide seamlessly from one shade to the next and you also get a lovely punchy white when you fire all four chips at once.

Chauvet quote 8,687 lux at 2 metres which, in the kind of rooms most of us work in, is going to be more than bright enough. In a 100-capacity function room it'll be borderline blinding, in the way we all secretly love. Gobo-wise you get five plus open, all rotating, indexing and interchangeable using Chauvet DJ's brilliant slot-n-lock system which, if you've ever fiddled about swapping gobos in a moving head with a screwdriver and a head torch, you will weep tears of joy over.

Don't like the included ones? Pop your own 24mm gobos in and off you go. There's continuous scroll at variable speeds too, so plenty to play with for first dances and big moments. It's a featherweight at just 4.1kg and physically tiny, slotting neatly into the CHS-ear Bag, so a pair of these is going to be no bother whatsoever to lug about.

On the back you've got 3-pin DMX in and out, IEC- style power for daisy-chaining (up to eleven units at 230v, which is frankly ridiculous in a good way), and a gorgeous full-colour LCD display that makes navigating the menus an absolute breeze. You get a choice of 9 or channels depending on how much control you want. CHAUVET DJ SENTINEL RANGE Now here's the clever stuff. The "ILS" on the end of the name means it carries a built-in D-Fi transceiver and plays nicely in Chauvet's ILS ecosystem.

In plain English; you can wirelessly sync it up with other ILS fixtures (your GigBAR, for example) without crawling around with a reel of DMX cable. Pop it into the right wireless channel and it just falls into step with everything else. There's totem mode too, which keeps the head facing the dance floor instead of blinding granny on table six. A cracking little spot for the money.

Chauvet DJ Sentinel Wash Q120 Next up, the wash, and here's where things get interesting because the Sentinel Wash Q120 is the rebel of the family. Spec-wise it's a beast for its size. A single 120w RGBW quad-colour LED is the engine here, and unlike the spot, this one has a Fresnel lens up front which gives you a really smooth, even, dramatic wash with no horrible hotspot in the middle. Chauvet quote 4,189 lumens and 8,710 lux at 2 metres which, for a wash, is genuinely lovely and rich.

The colours are saturated and punchy, exactly what you want when you're throwing a wall of colour across a room or backlighting a top table. The coverage angle is a fairly tight 16 degrees so this is more of a "concentrated beam of colour" wash than a "flood the whole ceiling" wash, but used in pairs or fours it looks superb. It's actually the lightest of the three at a mere 3.5kg, so your back will love you. You get a full pan and tilt (540 by 260 degrees) which If is the widest movement of the lot, plus 3-pin DMX I in and out, and a choice of 10 or channels.

There's even a USB-C port on board for firmware updates which is a nice modern touch, no more posting units back to be reflashed. But here's the rebel bit, and it's important so listen up. Unlike its two ILS siblings, the Wash Q120 does NOT have ILS, it does NOT have a built-in D-Fi transceiver, and there's no totem mode either. Instead, to sync multiple units up without DMX, you're relying on good old-fashioned master/slave mode with the built-in automated programs, or the optional IRC-6 remote.

Now, that's absolutely fine, master/slave has kept DJs happy for decades, but if you're buying into the Sentinel range specifically because you want everything talking wirelessly through ILS, you need to know that this one is the odd one out. It's the cousin who turns up to the family wedding but doesn't really know anyone. Is that a dealbreaker? Honestly, no, not at all.

If you DMX everything anyway, or you're happy linking a pair in master/ slave, the Q120 gives you the most light-per-pound of the three and that gorgeous Fresnel wash. Just go in with your eyes open. I suspect this is the budget hero of the range and for plenty of mobile jocks, that 120w punch at the lightest weight will be exactly what the doctor ordered. Chauvet DJ Sentinel Wash Q7Z ILS And finally, the show-off.

The Sentinel Wash Q7Z ILS is the one that made me go "oooooh" out loud in my dining room, which my neighbours have sadly come to accept as normal. Where the Q120 uses one big single LED, the Q7Z goes the other way with SEVEN 20w RGBW quad-colour LEDs arranged on the face, totaling 140w. 68 Mastermix Magazine Advert 2_Print.pdf 1 11/12/2024 13:36:21 you've read any of my previous reviews, you'll know love a multi-LED face like this, because it opens the door to zonal effects; instead of every chip showing the same colour, you can get all sorts of eye-candy as the individual LEDs do their own thing.

It's the kind of tasty extra that makes a light show look properly produced rather than just "lights on, job done". The headline feature though is the motorised zoom. You can pinch it right down to a razor-sharp 5-degree beam or open it out to a lovely wide 27-degree wash, all on the fly. This is genuinely useful for us mobile lot because the same fixture now works in a tiny village hall AND a cavernous barn with a 60ft ceiling.

Narrow it down and the brightness is frankly silly, Chauvet quote a whopping 30,537 lux at 2 metres in the narrow 5-degree setting. Open it wide and you've got a soft, room-filling colour wash. Two fixtures in one, basically. C M Y CM MY CY CMY K CHAUVET DJ SENTINEL RANGE It's the porker of the trio at 6.3kg thanks to all that gubbins inside, but it's still perfectly portable and a couple in a flight case won't put your back out.

Round the back it's the now-familiar 3-pin DMX in and out, power linking up to twelve units at 230v, the same lovely full-colour display, and a choice of 9 or channels. And crucially, like the spot, this one's a proper ILS citizen. Built-in D-Fi transceiver, full ILS ecosystem compatibility and totem mode all present and correct. So if you pair the Q7Z up with the Spot Q60 ILS, you've got a wireless, dance-floor-focused, beamand-wash combination that links together with no faff at all.

THAT, for me, is where the Sentinel range really makes sense. So, which one? If I'm honest, Chauvet DJ have done a really tidy job here. The two ILS units, the Spot Q60 and the Wash Q7Z, are clearly designed to be bought together and to play nicely with the wider ILS family, and that's exactly how I'd recommend buying them.

Add a GigBAR into that mix and you've got a wireless setup that takes minutes to get talking. The Wash Q120 is the value option with the biggest single-LED punch and a beautiful Fresnel wash, just remember it sits outside the ILS party and relies on master/slave. Pick the one (or the pair, because these things always look best in twos and fours) that suits how you actually work. Well done Chauvet DJ, another cracking range for the mobile market.

EVOX J9 EVOX J11 Whether you’re DJing, playing live, performing on stage, or hosting a corporate event, EVOX keeps setup fast and results consistent. Choose EVOX J9 (2100 W) or EVOX J11 (3500 W) for true three-way performance, or expand your inputs with the EVOX JMIX 9 featuring an integrated 8 channel stereo digital mixer and remote control app. Free-standing, elegant, and available in black or white, EVOX J delivers quick deployment and high-level power wherever the music takes you. rcf.it #ExperienceRCF CHAUVET DJ SENTINEL RANGE

Visit the Chauvet DJ manufacturer website