SP Studio Squire Series 920 AC Strobe with Removable Cord (SPS920)

Unfortunately, I don't have any other strobes to compare this to; I don't set up my lights all that often (no room for a studio here), so when the power pack for my old Novatron strobes died, I never plunked down the cash to replace it. Instead I use this SPS920 and two remotely triggered Canon Speedlites.When I first bought this unit (close to 10 years ago now), I quickly got frustrated with it because it was the first time I had ever had a light with built-in slave (automatically firing when it senses a flash burst from another flash). I was trying to trigger it with a Speedlite, and even though I could see the SPS920's flash burst in time with the Speedlite, it always seemed out of sync -- the light from the Speedlite could be seen in the resulting frame but the SPS920 would actually fire a fraction of a second *before* the shutter tripped. Rookie mistake. Turned out to be the pre-flash that most camera systems use to determine TTL flash exposure was triggering the SPS920's burst before the main flash.So, you'll have to have your flashes in manual mode if you're going to trigger the SPS920 remotely. I've seen some units out there that have pre-flash sensing capabilities that will allow them to ignore the pre-flash and fire at the correct time. However, I've never used one so I can't compare them to this model. Since 1) TTL flash metering would likely be wrong anyway since this strobe is not accounted for in the exposure calculations, and 2) my radio triggers don't support TTL metering anyway, it's safe to say that I'm not missing anything by switching to manual mode on my Speedlites.I've looked around for similar strobes, especially nice cheap ones that I can play with and are still small enough to be somewhat portable (at least, more so than the Novatron set). There are much cheaper ones out there, of course, but the consistent pattern among those cheaper models is a combination of poor build quality (according to the reviews) and low power (on the rare occasion when a guide number is specified, it tends to be no higher than around 30, compared to this unit's GN of 92).If you're looking for great portability though, you may want to consider a battery powered unit instead. You can get something like this flash (not an endorsement, I've never used it) for much cheaper, if you don't mind a bit less power. Invest in Eneloops if you do that!