Altman Lighting 🇺🇸

📍 Yonkers, New York, USA

🏢 Founded 1953

🌍 Theatrical & Architectural Luminaires

Overview Innovations Products Applications FAQs Resources

Company Overview

Founded in 1953 by Charles Altman in Yonkers, New York, Altman Lighting is one of the most storied and respected names in the global theatrical lighting industry. For decades, the Altman brand was synonymous with the traditional incandescent stage fixture—their classic Fresnel and Ellipsoidal reflector spotlights literally illuminated Broadway, major motion pictures, and high school auditoriums across America.

Rather than fade with the advent of LED technology, Altman aggressively modernized their entire catalog. Today, they engineer state-of-the-art LED luminaires that mimic the exact dimming curves, warmth, and massive output of legacy tungsten fixtures, while utilizing a fraction of the power and generating almost zero heat.

Altman remains a proudly family-owned American manufacturing company. Their focus remains squarely on the purity of light—providing perfectly flat optical fields, incredibly high CRI (Color Rendering Index) for flawless skin tones on camera, and dead-silent operation for critical theatrical and broadcast environments.

Core Technologies

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Legacy LED Retrofitting

Altman engineered highly specialized LED engines that can be dropped directly into the chassis of their decades-old traditional fixtures, allowing cash-strapped theaters to upgrade to LED without discarding their massive inventory of lenses and barrels.

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Tungsten Fade Emulation

Advanced software algorithms inside their LED fixtures that perfectly emulate the slow, warm, glowing fade-to-black of a traditional incandescent light bulb, a critical requirement for Broadway lighting designers.

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Convection Cooling Systems

Massive, custom-machined heat sinks that pull heat away from the LED engine without the use of spinning cooling fans, ensuring the fixture is absolutely silent for broadcast television and quiet theatrical dialogue.

Featured Solutions

PHX LED Ellipsoidal

The modern standard for theatrical spot lighting. Available in multiple wattages and color arrays (including RGBA and tunable white), it produces a perfectly flat, sharp beam for projecting gobos and highlighting actors.

Chalice LED Downlight

A premium architectural downlight utilized in high-end houses of worship, luxury retail, and auditoriums. It offers massive output and theatrical-grade DMX dimming from the ceiling.

AP-150 LED Par

A lightweight, massively bright LED wash fixture designed for the rigors of touring and stage washing, featuring motorized zoom capabilities to shift from a tight beam to a wide flood.

Ideal Industry Deployments

🎭 Broadway & Regional Theater

📺 Broadcast TV Studios

⛪ Houses of Worship

🏛️ Architectural & Museum

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I upgrade my old Altman 360Q ellipsoidal to LED?

Yes, Altman manufactures specific LED retrofit kits designed to replace the traditional halogen lamp burner inside older Altman fixtures (like the 360Q or classic Shakespeare). This provides the power efficiency of LED while saving the cost of the metal chassis and lenses.

What is ‘Tunable White’ in Altman fixtures?

Tunable White fixtures allow the lighting designer to electronically adjust the color temperature of the white light—from a warm, tungsten-like 2700K to a stark, daylight-like 6000K—without using physical colored gels. This is critical for matching the lighting to different broadcast cameras.

Are Altman fixtures still made in the USA?

Yes, Altman Lighting maintains a massive manufacturing, engineering, and assembly facility in Yonkers, New York, remaining one of the few major lighting manufacturers with primary production rooted in the United States.