The light hitting my face in every video I’ve shot for the past few weeks is the Amaran Halo 600x. And when I first pulled it out of the box, I’ll be straight with you — I thought it was absurd. Six hundred watts for a YouTube talking head setup. No no no.
Three weeks later I haven’t taken it down once.
This is the first time I’ve reviewed Amaran lights on this channel. I’ve covered Godox, Sirui, iFootage, Nanlite, Suncrafter — pretty much every lighting brand a working creator runs into. Amaran just never came through until now. So this is not a first impressions piece. I’ve lived with this kit, run it on real shoots, metered it properly, and I’m going to give you the honest breakdown of all three lights so you can make the right buying decision for your setup.
What the Wattage Question Gets Wrong
Most creators approach lighting the wrong way. They either grab the cheapest 100-watt panel they can find and wonder why it can’t punch through a softbox, or they jump straight to a 600-watt fixture and assume it’s overkill.
Here’s what the Amaran Halo range actually looks like across all three models.
The Halo 100x pulls 100 watts of power and delivers 84 watts of actual light output. It weighs approximately 420 grams, runs off USB-C Power Delivery or DC, and takes a full Bowens mount. People see the size and assume beginner light. It’s not — more on that below.
The Halo 200x is twice as powerful at 200 watts draw and 179 watts output, weighing approximately 1.95 kilos. This is what most people searching for “YouTube studio lighting” are actually looking for, even if they don’t know it yet.
The Halo 600x is 610 watts of power draw, 545 watts of output, and somehow weighs just 2.91 kilos. For context — I own a couple of 300-watt lights with separate power bricks that are physically bigger than this fixture. It produces 32,500 lux at one metre bare. That number matters. I’ll explain why.
Three Weeks With the 600x — What I Actually Found
Here’s the principle nobody really explains when it comes to powerful lights.
A bigger light at low power performs better than a smaller light at full power, every single time. The fall-off is smoother. The shadows are cleaner. Your skintones glow rather than flatten. And because the fixture is barely working, the fan barely spins.
I run the 600x with a third-party reflector — these lights don’t ship with one, which is worth knowing. The reflector does two things at once: it controls the spread and increases the output at every power level. From there, the light goes through a Neewer 150 by 200cm diffuser at 5 to 9 percent power. Sometimes less. The light sits about 6 to 7 feet from that diffuser.
At those settings, the 600x doesn’t feel like a 600-watt light. It feels like a 90-watt light with 510 watts of headroom you’ll probably never touch. That headroom is what separates it from cheaper fixtures — it never has to strain, and you can hear and see the difference.
If your studio is a corner of your bedroom, the 200x will get you 90 percent of the way there for less money. But if you’ve got a bigger space, need to bounce light off a ceiling for a natural room-fill look, or want to overpower window light coming in behind you, there is no substitute for raw output.
I couldn’t find a V6 of the Amaran script specifically — the V6 in your history is the RØDE podcast review. The most complete Amaran version I have is your final edited teleprompter script from this conversation. Building the blog post from that now. If there’s a newer V6 with changes, share it and I’ll update.
SEO TITLE (for meta/browser tab): Amaran Halo 600x, 200x & 100x Review — Which Light Do You Actually Need? | Your Filmmaker
META DESCRIPTION: I’ve been running the Amaran Halo 600x as my daily key light at 5–9% power. Here’s what I actually found after testing all three Halos — including CCT readings, fan noise, modifier tests, and the honest buying guide.
Why I Run a 600 Watt Light at 15% Power — Amaran Halo 600x, 200x & 100x Tested
Disclosure: Amaran sent me the Halo 100x, 200x and 600x to test. TexTale sent me the hoodie you’ll see in the video. Neither had any editorial input and neither saw this content before it went live.
The light hitting my face in every video I’ve shot for the past few weeks is the Amaran Halo 600x. And when I first pulled it out of the box, I’ll be straight with you — I thought it was absurd. Six hundred watts for a YouTube talking head setup. No no no.
Three weeks later I haven’t taken it down once.
This is the first time I’ve reviewed Amaran lights on this channel. I’ve covered Godox, Sirui, iFootage, Nanlite, Suncrafter — pretty much every lighting brand a working creator runs into. Amaran just never came through until now. So this is not a first impressions piece. I’ve lived with this kit, run it on real shoots, metered it properly, and I’m going to give you the honest breakdown of all three lights so you can make the right buying decision for your setup.
What the Wattage Question Gets Wrong
Most creators approach lighting the wrong way. They either grab the cheapest 100-watt panel they can find and wonder why it can’t punch through a softbox, or they jump straight to a 600-watt fixture and assume it’s overkill.
Here’s what the Amaran Halo range actually looks like across all three models.
The Halo 100x pulls 100 watts of power and delivers 84 watts of actual light output. It weighs approximately 420 grams, runs off USB-C Power Delivery or DC, and takes a full Bowens mount. People see the size and assume beginner light. It’s not — more on that below.
The Halo 200x is twice as powerful at 200 watts draw and 179 watts output, weighing approximately 1.95 kilos. This is what most people searching for “YouTube studio lighting” are actually looking for, even if they don’t know it yet.
The Halo 600x is 610 watts of power draw, 545 watts of output, and somehow weighs just 2.91 kilos. For context — I own a couple of 300-watt lights with separate power bricks that are physically bigger than this fixture. It produces 32,500 lux at one metre bare. That number matters. I’ll explain why.
Three Weeks With the 600x — What I Actually Found
Here’s the principle nobody really explains when it comes to powerful lights.
A bigger light at low power performs better than a smaller light at full power, every single time. The fall-off is smoother. The shadows are cleaner. Your skintones glow rather than flatten. And because the fixture is barely working, the fan barely spins.
I run the 600x with a third-party reflector — these lights don’t ship with one, which is worth knowing. The reflector does two things at once: it controls the spread and increases the output at every power level. From there, the light goes through a Neewer 150 by 200cm diffuser at 5 to 9 percent power. Sometimes less. The light sits about 6 to 7 feet from that diffuser.
At those settings, the 600x doesn’t feel like a 600-watt light. It feels like a 90-watt light with 510 watts of headroom you’ll probably never touch. That headroom is what separates it from cheaper fixtures — it never has to strain, and you can hear and see the difference.
If your studio is a corner of your bedroom, the 200x will get you 90 percent of the way there for less money. But if you’ve got a bigger space, need to bounce light off a ceiling for a natural room-fill look, or want to overpower window light coming in behind you, there is no substitute for raw output.
The Power Brick Is Finally Gone
One thing that doesn’t get talked about enough — the Halo 200x, 300x, and 600x have ditched the external power brick entirely. No ballast hanging off your stand. No hunting for which adapter belongs to which light. Just one AC cable straight into the back of the fixture.
If you’ve ever set up a 300-watt light with the ballast cable dangling off the stand — especially if you run lights in a matrix or an array — you’ll know exactly why this matters.
The 100x and the 60x go the other direction, running off USB-C Power Delivery, which opens up a completely different workflow for location work.
On the menu side: dual knobs, NFC pairing for the Amaran Creators app on your phone, and an on-light menu that’s genuinely clean to navigate. All three lights also support DMX control, so if you’re running a board or working in a studio with proper lighting infrastructure, these sit right alongside professional fixtures.
The feature I rate most highly across the whole range is studio mode — you set the light to come on automatically the moment it detects power. Flip your power strip, the whole setup wakes up at the brightness and CCT you left it on. Small thing on paper, saves you a step every single shoot day.
You can also save up to 9 effect presets per light — fire flicker, police light, music video looks. Save once, recall instantly. That’s a feature built for working creators, not for unboxing videos.
The 100x Is Not a Beginner Light
Two things make the Halo 100x punch well above its price and size.
First — the full Bowens mount. Most portable lights at this wattage give you a tiny proprietary mount and then sell you the adapters. Amaran didn’t do that. Every softbox, lantern, snoot, and grid you already own just works. That is genuinely rare at this price point and this form factor, and it’s an immediate big win.
Second — USB-C Power Delivery. You can run this off a V-mount battery, a large power bank, or a standard USB-C wall plug. I had someone use the 100x handheld on a shoot to light talent I was filming — V-mount in one hand, light in the other, no reflector — and it was more than enough. For solo creators, wedding filmmakers, or anyone doing anything outside a controlled studio, the 100x is far more capable than its spec sheet suggests.
Beam Spread & Modifier Tests
I tested all three lights bare and with a third-party reflector, same distance, same camera settings.
Bare COB: All three gave a very even beam spread — wide, soft fall-off, no hot spot, no harsh edges. Critically, the same beam pattern held whether the light was dialled to 5600K or 3200K. That tells you Amaran is using the same optical design across the range. Your 100x rim light and your 600x key will look like they belong to the same family of light.
With reflector: The beam concentrated in the middle, which is what a reflector is supposed to do. Behaviour was consistent across all three lights regardless of CCT. The trade-off to know about is multiple shadowing — when you change the optical path with a third-party modifier, the LED array’s emitters interact with the optics in a way they weren’t originally designed for. Secondary shadows show up in the falloff. That’s not an Amaran-specific problem, it happens with most COB fixtures and aftermarket reflectors. First-party Amaran modifiers will likely give you cleaner shadow rendering — I don’t own any from Amaran yet, so I can’t confirm that directly.
CCT Accuracy & Lux Output
I tested everything with the LIT DUO 1 light meter. It doesn’t support CRI, TM30, or SSI testing yet — that’s coming via firmware update. So these are real-world CCT and lux readings, not full spectral analysis. For reference, Amaran publishes SSI ratings of 74 at daylight and 84 at tungsten, which is solid territory for content creation work.
At 5600K, one metre, bare COB, 100% power:
| Light | Dialled | Measured | Lux | G/M Shift |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halo 100x | 5600K | 5200K | 6,300 | 0 |
| Halo 200x | 5600K | 5200K | 14,000 | +1/8 |
| Halo 600x | 5600K | 5350K | 47,000 | +1/8 |
At 3200K, one metre, bare COB, 100% power:
| Light | Dialled | Measured | Lux | G/M Shift |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halo 100x | 3200K | 3100K | 5,500 | +1/8 |
| Halo 200x | 3200K | 3000K | 12,300 | +1/8 |
| Halo 600x | 3200K | 3150K | 42,000 | +1/8 |
The CCT drift is consistent across all three lights, which means colour matching between them is predictable. Set all three to 5600K and they’ll land at roughly the same temperature. Lux numbers came in below Amaran’s published specifications — that’s normal for real-world testing with a reflector versus manufacturer lab conditions.
Fan Noise — The MKH416 Test
I ran the 600x at four power levels with a Sennheiser MKH 416 just out of frame: 10%, 50%, 100% Smart Mode, and 100% Silent Mode.
For context, there are several other lights in the studio during normal recording — including a Suncrafter F200B overhead, which is currently the loudest light in my setup.
At anything below 50% the 600x is silent for practical purposes. Above 50% it picks up, but Smart Mode keeps it controlled. Amaran rates it at 28 dBA in Smart Mode at room temperature. Silent Mode is available if you absolutely need dead silence, but it costs you roughly three stops of light output.
Which Amaran Halo Should You Actually Buy?
Get the Halo 100x if you’re a solo creator or wedding filmmaker working in smaller spaces, you need to run off USB-C power for location work, or you want a compact fixture that doubles as a hair or rim light with full Bowens compatibility.
Get the Halo 200x if you’re building a standard YouTube talking-head setup in a normal-sized room and want one fixture that can push properly through a softbox at 30 to 40% power without overwhelming the space. Honestly, this is the one I’d recommend for most people reading this.
Get the Halo 600x if you’re working in a bigger studio, want to bounce off ceilings for a natural room-fill look, need to hold your own against window light, or shoot beyond YouTube — narrative, commercial, music video — and need one fixture that crosses over between studio and set.
Final Thoughts
Lighting doesn’t make your channel succeed. Your script does. Your edit, your delivery — the thing you actually have to say. But your lighting is your visual signature, and after a few weeks of running the 600x as my daily key alongside testing the 200x and 100x properly, Amaran has earned a place in my setup.
Watch the full video for the CCT readings on screen, the live fan noise test, the three-way lighting demo, and the full modifier comparison footage. Links to all three Amaran Halos are in the video description.
It’s Your Filmmaker, I’ll see you in the next one. God bless and peace. 🙏🏾
Affiliate links may be present in the video description. TexTale discount code: YOUFILMMAKER5 — _FRESH Rain-Repel Hoodie and Stain-Relaxed Tee linked in the video description.
