Lustr+ Series 1 vs. Series 2

Check with your dealer to determine if there's a price difference.  That's then part of the decision

The Series 2 has better "white light" matching to an incandescent S4, as well there's no such thing as too bright, as you can always run it at less the full.  It's always easier to dim it then to make it brighter.

True.  Too bright would not be an issue.  However, the LEDs themselves have half the lamp life, I think it's 20,000 hrs vs. 50,000 hrs.  

Also, sorry I was not clear, there is a price difference in that the Series 2 is about 10-15% more expensive per fixture.

Aside from better "white light" matching, is the rest of the color mixing capabilities about the same?

Are there any videos or anything available for a side by side comparison?

Depends how large your venue is.  We found we needed Series 2 for FOH use, otherwise the units are too dim for a larger venue.  We have series 1 overhead.

The Series 2 are brighter in white light, and also in amber, yellow, red, pink, lavender, and light blue.  That said, I've used the Series 1 many times (before the Series 2 came out) in spaces large and small, and they've been fine.  Would have been nicer if they were brighter, but it wasn't the end of the world.

For a small increase in price, I would lean towards getting the brighter fixture.  Remember that 20,000 hours is still over 2 years.  That's 2 years with the whole LED array on at full.  In reality, you're going to run the LEDs at much lower levels, and never continuously.  You should expect to get much, much more life out of them.

(For perspective, if you ran the whole array at full for 3 hours a day, every day, you're talking about 18 years of service...)

In the end, only you can decide which is the best choice for your space and budget.  See if your dealer will do a demo.  Ask them if you can borrow a few of each type for a production.

~P

Here is a link to the  product page. It has a nice chart showing output comparisons of Series 1, Series 2, and standard Source Four output.

The Series 2 has a Lime LED instead of White (which is why it is a Lustr not a Lustr+) which gives us a better white light with the entire array.  The number of emitters in the different color channels changed a bit to get a better balance and improve color mixing. Your blues and reds will have more punch individually, and a better overall mix capability. There is a great graphic out that compares the color range of a Series 1 vs Series 2, which demonstrates the better balance of colors according to energy/output, I haven't found the electronic version of that yet but I can post to this thread when I do.

Keep in mind that hours milestone is not when the LED will stop working, but the point when 50% of the LEDS are expected to have their output drop to 70% of the original output. . As Paul stated, 3 hours a day is18 years, and your actual experience will very depending on your usage. The fixture should last longer than that in normal use. 

I'm sure your local dealer would love to arrange for a demo at your venue to demonstrate the fixtures in your application.

ETC has updated its rating for the Series 2 and ColorSource fixtures to 54,000 hours.  This is based on real-world testing by an independent lab (instead of the estimates from the LED manufacturers, as the 20,000 hour rating was).  More info here: 

 It stands to reason that the Series 1 fixtures will also last even longer than their original 50,000 hour rating, though it doesn't seem like that is the focus of ETC's testing since that's a legacy product.

Props to ETC for under-promising and over-delivering.