I also only use philips bulbs at home, but I use the bright white (4000k) ones instead.
Work very well, they look exactly like the original halogen pars that they are replacing.
I’d love some 4000K ones in a few corners of the house but my girlfriend refuses 4000K, makes her feel like she’s in hospital 
I would love 5000 lumen bulbs, we don’t have them in Canada yet.
As for CFLs they are dead, this is a 6 year old thread
Maybe I wrote it wrong the light bulb is for outside the garage, would never take such a bulb inside it
It should be noted though that these are the current, most high-end halogen replacement spots that Philips offers (“Master LED Expert Color”). I have some of these with 4000K. The biggest downside is that they don’t offer wider emition angles.
I have one of those Philips MR16 halogen replacement bulbs. They are quite expensive, and many transformers just won’t cope with the low current. In the end I found cheaper high CRI replacement LEDs that replace the entire recessed lighting can and transformer, and have magnetic bezels that are easily swapped out for decorative ones.
I got rid of all CFLs in my house when one shattered in 2012, releasing who knows how much mercury near my newborn girl. CFLs can’t be banned quickly enough as far as I am concerned.
The Philips halogen replacement shown above has a GU10 base. It runs directly on mains without a transformer.
Right now I can buy Philips LED bulb (60W equivalent) for about $2 in one of the local supermarkets. It’s a promo but it lasts for a few weeks now. Previously I bought the “100W” ones (1521lm) for $2,5 each. They have much better tint than noname bulbs and I’m pretty sure they will last much longer.
[quote=Lexel]
What I don’t like is that there’s no middle ground. You can buy either well priced and bright 80CRI bulbs (or sometimes much less than 80) or those very high CRI ones which are extremely rare, very expensive and noticeably less bright. There’s nothing in the middle.
Did you buy them online or locally?
These are the recessed lighting replacements I bought;
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LYZ0BOZ/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I verified the CRI 93 rating with my UPRtek spectro. They are very easy to install, the hardest part is removing the old cans (whoever remodeled my house in 2006 used Elite Lighting, which are complete garbage, and the transformers even worse).
You make it sound more extreme than it is. These 97CRI Philips spots I bought for 7.5 euro a piece in a dutch budget webstore (so readily available for normal people), that is twice the price of a 80CRI Philips bulb but still very affordable for what you get: if these do not need replacing for the next 10 years they cost next to nothing compared to other costs I have around the house. I checked the efficiency of these against a latest gen. common 80CRI Philips GU10 spot (both 2700K), and it is not that much less: 68lm/W against 76lm/W.
People need to stop that needs to be cheap thinking
Those GU10 bulbs will outlast every cheap bulb by far as they use high temperature components in the converter, they are specced at 40000h and 100 degree celsius
You get on top a CRI that is awesome, no ugly tints like in many cheap bulbs, just aknowledge that a quality bulb costs money, sure as its Philips you pay more for the brands name, but still true you get what you pay for
And the chineese companies seem slowly to follow investing in development of better drivers and using high CRI, but those bulbs are also getting more expensive
I have replaced almost all lights with LEDs in the house except the bathroom. The exhaust fan doesn’t collect enough steam and i am worried the LED bulbs will short out.
For me personally i have bought Phillips, Osram, Mirabella (Australian brand), Aldi bulbs Aldi use different suppliers per country? (Australian company made in China for these Aldi bulbs) plus 2 other generic home brand bulb from a hardware store here.
So far for me the best bulbs have been Mirabella which are generic bulbs from what i can tell best performing bulb but not best CRI. The Phillips bulb under perform when they get hot bad design almost no heat sinking with a plastic case plus they are over rated output wise i done my own lux testing. Probably the biggest seller here are Phillips because they are stocked at a few places.
I have an Aldi bulb in my room that is 3000k 90+ Cri 1500 lumens. I also have a 1500 lumens Phillips bulb in the kitchen and the Aldi bulb performs much better the weight difference is so huge between both bulbs.
For us here CFL and LED bulbs are the same price so its a much smarter choice to chose LEDs. I got a bunch of Osram 1200 lumen bulbs for $2 each but they are cold white but its fine for outside.
Problem with Philips is that they have 3 totally different qualities
the cheap usual end customer quality
better for commercial lightning
and top performing ultra reliable commercial lightning also very high CRI
I would not recomment or buy the end customer quality any more,
as I have written above first in 2014 they came with full aluminum body later only plastic when I had to replace a defective bulb with the same type ordered in 2017
I have seen teardowns of Osram and Philips light bulbs in the cheap customer quality made 2012-2016 and they really do not look good at all on the electronics LEDs were good in CRI and tints, only better than ultra cheap China stuff which comes with dump PSU and tint lottery
It is pretty extreme, I found one in just two online stores for 10-14 euros shipped. Another bad thing is they’re GU10 only. E27/A60 are equally rare and even more expensive.
Not everyone lives in a country with one of the highest wages in the world that allow them not to cheap out on things. When a regular halogen bulb costs $0.5, 80CRI LED sells for $2 and 97 CRI is $10 while making much less lumens, it does make a lot of difference.
Not all Germans are rich and they probably pay a truck load of taxes too.
(just saying)
so the Philips CRI same bulb and same color
its naturally high CRI costs lumens, but the light quality gained is worth a lot
CRI97 440 Lumen (site 2)
http://www.lighting.philips.de/prof/led-lampen-und-roehren/led-reflektorlampen-ledspot/master-ledspot-mr16-expertcolor/929001342402_EU/product
and it does not help complaining about a bulb which costs 10$ but will likely outlast 3-4 cheap China bulbs that dry out their input caps within a few thousand hours running as hot
^ Very true.
Also, because cheap LED lamps run too hot the LEDs wear down pretty fast too.
We have 3 E27 lights in our garden.
They are all 2 Watts.
I built 2 of them myself for 12 Volts AC from a transformer (ground leak problem with 240 V) using a rectifier and a 300mA buck driver, a heat sink and 4x 5730 in 2S4P configuration on a LED board.
The other one is a cheap stock E27 LED bulb with no cooling.
The stock bulb was never as bright as the self built ones, but after a year now, it’s considerably less bright.
And so cheap may turn out to be not so cheap…
The cost of led bulbs is far outwheighed by the electricity costs of normal incandescent bulbs.
The Philips Master spots cost around 7€ for Germans when bought online. Thats not cheap, but not too bad either. Good, bright light means higher quality of life.
Still, one could argue that in the winter incandescent lights help heat the room. 
they do help but burning fuel directly [natural gas] is still cheaper than using electricity to heat
wle