Sound Off Pinnacle First Impressions

John Hearne

Member
Member
May 27, 2010
346
56
54
Pontotoc County, MS
In an attempt to standardize our fleet, we're buying a 5-6 lightbars with year end money. I'm kinda in charge of the project and have been looking really hard at the Sound Off Pinnacle. We definitely want a multi-mode bar in hopes of different patterns for stationary versus moving ala FHP but without color changing.


Not wanting to buy something without seeing it in person, I was finally able to get my hands on a sample Pinnacle today - it was literally taken out of the box in front of me. Overall, we were very impressed with the bar. The version we played with was blue with takedowns and their two color arrow stick on the back. We parked a Whelen Liberty and a Tomar Blade next to the Sound Off for comparison purposes. In a nutshell, the Pinnacle smoked them both. Probably the most impressive design feature of the Pinnacle are the corners. Each corner is double stacked with twelve LEDs to the front and twelve to the rear. The angled coverage this provides is very impressive and frankly embarrassed the competition. The Whelen had 12 LED takedowns and the Pinnacle's takedowns couldn't quite beat them but they came close. Both sets of takedowns were blinding even during the day in Misssissippi. While not tested at night, the alleys were very bright and make the side warning even more impressive in run in the flashing mode.


The only issue I had with the bar is that that multi-color arrowstick function is weak. When the heads fired in amber they were weak and reminded me of a depopulated Liberty head. This isn't an issue for us as we're going to buy the Sound Off rear deck traffic advisor but could be an issue if you want both in one unit.


I wasn't sure what I would think about the breakout box that Sound Off uses to control the unit. After playing with it, I realized how much control the setup allows over the bar with each wire serving as a binary switch to control some function. While I won't be wiring the new cars, setup looks easy.
 
Sounds good. Just one thing what power blade did you see? I sell mostly high power meaning it has 12 LED's per mod. If you saw a low 6 per mod or Standard power 9 it wouldnt be a good test. I have a Tomar Blade High power and I have not yet seen a brighter bar.
 
Ye you need to see the High power Blade . Its so bright you see yellow dots after looking at it. My freind was on a MVA recently and a NYS Trooper asked him if he can turn off the White on his blade. This happened at night of course. But its still very bright by day.
 
I have only seen one Pinnacle in person and it was really nice. My VFD has a SOS ETL5000 on our new squad brush truck and it is still a great SOS lightbar...too bad the Pinnacle wasn't out when we put lights on it. I have seen several blades as well and they are really nice looking bars. Most of the newer linear style US company made/designed are good lightbars and you shouldn't be too disappointed with whichever one you choose. In the end just look at the cost vs benefit vs options/needs and decide what is best for you/your department in the long run.


Not to hijack the thread, but I have a random question for VolEms... when is Tomar going to come out with an interior lightbar? I always figured they would come out with one based on their RECT-25 lightheads. Over even now with their RECT-13/14 lights for a TIR style interior lightbar. I know either would probably be expensive, but they would be darn bright and give some of the other interior lightbars a run for their money.


Anywho, back to the regularly scheduled programming :p
 
If you log onto tomar.com you can see in the backround an interior lightbar. They told me they are working on it. As everything Tomar does it takes time. I agree an inerior lightbar made of Rect25 high power would blow the others away. I just did 4 cars some wanted 2 200s in the headliner, and 2 cars put 3 200s, 2 in the headliner and one on the dash. I also just sold 2 rect25 high power lightsticks. 8 heads each the guy mounted them on his roof one foward and one rear. I tried to sell him a blade but he wanted 2 strips to maintain a low profile.
 
In my experience none of the bars that i have compared with the newer liberty have come close to it. Again my opinion.
 
Did it have the 12 diode or 6 diode rear arrow modules. The first one we got last year had the "split arrow" with 3 of each color. The newer bars have 6 and 6 and are pretty impressive.
 

Forum Statistics

Threads
54,789
Messages
453,193
Members
19,542
Latest member
bushfirey83