High CRI... not what I expected? (Happy ending in post 118)

You might think that the forum is filled with 3rd shift produce or art inspectors, (and it might be!), but hobbyists just like to push the boundaries.
A decent tint and a nice beam profile is all you need most of the time if you just want to see the Lego on the floor before you step on it. With the emitters of yesteryear you might not be able to tell what color it was because of the extreme blue or angry purple output but things are better now.
If you’re using it for nighttime communications wiring with every color of the rainbow twisted pairs then HCRI might give you an advantage.

No matter how you use it; have fun with your new headlamp!

Not only more enjoyable, it’s just easier to tell a grey rock from a brown leaf than a grey rock from a grey leaf.
That’s not a major difference often but I’ve had a hike where I found it really hard to walk by a low CRI light.

I recently converted a 219b triple to a XHP50.2 3V - it is a huge difference. Once your eyes get used to high-CRI they will notice the change.
On throwers I notice it less, but only because I don’t use them outside. I just point them at the sky or play around with them, if I’d use them on a trail or in the forest, I would see it too.

It’s the same like listening to high(er) fidelity audio. Still as a n00b and with a relatively “tin ear”, you might not notice any difference at first, but once you acclimate to it, going back to lo-fi sounds like crap.

Ymmv.

That makes sense having it explained that way. Maybe I’m just too slow at picking up on the trend.

LH351D has very bad R9, of course it doesn’t look much better. It’s a crap emitter imo. The only high CRI emitters worth using will have 80+ R9. So, SST20/E21A/219b, and much more superior emitters like Sunlike, Thrive, Optisolis, etc.
Even Sunlike make my skin the wrong color - cri ratings are misleading -> you need to look at the spectrum. All LEDs have a gradual cutoff at 650+nm and hardly any near IR

CRI is pretty subtle anyway, until you’re looking at natural things like wood or birds. Much harder to tell with man made things
ngl, the 70 cri emitters in GT94 give me a headache, colors are very wrong, even with a wall of light it’s harder to quickly determine what I’m looking at, but this is actually more a problem with cool cct -> they should not exist imo

A little off-topic but if you do a double blind-test of the same track from the same recording you will find that you can’t tell the difference and its only an illusion like almost anything in hifi (apart from good speakers). Many hi-resolution tracks sound better but this is because of a better mastering so they can sell the illusion, also the brain will trick you just because it should be better.

It’s all a matter of preference in the end. Maybe the longer you use it the more you’ll notice the subtleties? You see high CRI all the time from sunlight so your eyes might just be used to it a bit unconsciously.

Nothing wrong with High CRI at all, I have several High CRI lights.
But that being said, it is just not the be all end all it is cracked up to be “as far as I am concerned”.

Sure, as was mentioned; in some situations High CRI may give an advantage in color recognition. But honestly, in real life; I rarely encounter those situations.
As mentioned above, I am more concerned with tint & beam profile. To each their own. :wink: :white_check_mark:

I think its more of a combination of the sound setup. Quality of the speakers. Sure, party speakers can get really loud, but they sound like garbage compared to studio monitors. Even a cheap garbage tier 2.1 setup sounds much better than built in TV speakers nowadays. Also its almost impossible to discern 256Kbit MP3 from Flac on most music on good sound setups.

Party/Outdoor Speakers = High output but low sound quality (Low CRI high output LEDs)
Studio monitors = Output not as high but much better sound quality (High CRI LEDs)

I’d much rather have studio monitors for listening to music.

compare xpg2 and 4000k 219b… Chicken ala CRI:

otoh, Low CRI, on the left, makes green things look nice and greener:

That oversaturated skin tone is why I have a love/hate relationship with 219b… 103 rg :frowning:

Sunlike much nicer, good sst20 bins too

the LH351d is a popular alternative
it does not have the sw45k signature hyper pink feature/bug

glad you dont find them too green… :beer:

Someone should do a poll/survey comparing colorblind vs not people and whether 70 vs 90 CRI is perceptibly very different.

For me, it’s such a huge difference. Even before owning any neutral white LED flashlights - let alone 90+ CRI! - I hated the color quality. Reminds me of the worst florescent lighting I’ve seen, and really felt like it “blended” the colors of things together, making it harder to distinguish different things of even fairly different color.

The only comparable I have seen is high voltage Thrive/ Optisolis/Sunlike, and sst20 FA4 which is lower CCT and still +duv therefore not in the same class, nevermind the aforemention high voltage issues

Lh351d has too awful r9 to be in same class. I would argue e21a is better, but is still oversaturated a little

That’s kind of the point though? It’s the very low duv of the “k” binned 219Bs that causes that skewed color rendition/perception. You can always fine-tune that with -green filters w/other emitters anyway (and still be close to 219B in lm/W). Optisolis definitely doesn’t have a duv anywhere near as low, because it’s meant to most closely match a blackbody radiator.

SST-20 and LH351D are nice because you can slap them into just about any light, with any (3V) driver and just let it rip. E21A needs proper board and has tint shift without frosted optics (and donut-hole in quadtrix setup w/o frosted) and 219B still requires limited drive current.

Although I do see your point, it’s a known fact that it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between a $5000 sound system and a $50,000 sound system. The people that spend $50K like knowing their specs are hard to beat but the human ear really cannot tell the difference.

I laugh when I read reviews of a turntable that floats on a cushion of air, has a 50lb platter, and cost as much as a house. Then the person that buys it claims Dark side of the moon sounds incredible on it.

Dark Side of the Moon sounds best when it is playing in my head. But it is not me playing it in my head, it is someone in my head but it’s not me.

CRI? As long as the ting is not grey, I am happy.

Makes sense that my eyes aren’t trained to see it. On the flip side, I’m a trained musician and HQ audio does make a difference for me. Maybe not in a specifically describable way, but CD-quality and above just feels smoother on my ears.

I still like the light quite a lot and it has more value to me than just CRI.

I found this helpful. :white_check_mark: