Recently I have become more aware of the fact that people’s perception of light and colour varies quite a bit. Probably changes with age as well. Personally I am happiest with 4500 to 5500 so voted 5000. I find 4000 makes colours look muddy or orange, unnaturally so to my eye, and this to me is far more disappointing than a 6500 light that makes colours look faded or washed out. BLF A6 neutral or Q8 is just about perfect to me, makes colours look more natural to me than any higher CRI light of different cct that I have, still don’t have a neutral high CRI to compare.
I tend to like between 4000K and 5000K, but I’ve liked lights outside that. I’d pick 5000K generally, but my most-used light is 4500K because that’s the 144A I could get at the time.
I have some, check my signature and go to the store. It’s not too efficient and cheap since they are premium high CRI version.
There are some alternatives out there too. Try googling them.
Now we need a multi-emitter CCT-blending flashlight using both of these and maybe a neutral or two also to balance the middle, for a “nearly full” CCT spectrum totally in HI CRI.
I like 4000k in the evening when ambient is 3000k incandescent, but I dislike 4500k+ at that time
During the day, when my brain is white balanced to sunlight, I like 4500-6000k, and I dislike 3000k as too warm, at that time
but, if I dont compare the beam to anything, my brain white balances to all sorts of otherwise weird yellow, green, and violet tints, in a wide range of color temperatures
as a rule of thumb, I like the CCT of my flashlight to be slightly cooler (up to 1000k cooler) than the ambient white balance in that particular environment at the time of use
I voted 3000k as my most used light, because Im biased to low lumens and close range applications