Can anyone tell me about suppliers?
The first time I saw Spark headlamps was at sbflashlights.com at prices that are just north of rediculous. I know nothing about the brand or shop, but there's got to be a cheaper place than that. Our local cpf rep here may be able to point you in the direction of a discount code.
I'm afraid you have to be an active CPF member to get decent prices-right now, $80 bucks for an XML 18650 headlamp, 500 emmiter lumens.
More than I'm about to spend just now. They sure aren't cheapies.
I'd never heard of them till a month or so ago.
I bought mine directly from Spark, http://www.spark001.com/
Used email to order and Paypal for payment. Reasonable fast shipping and even got an extra 18650-charger for free.
The light is really nice, really like the UI. It's a bit front heavy and might bump around a bit when running, but that's due to the design without external batterypack and something I was aware about. My light flickers a bit on low-mode, enough to make me say it's broken. I've been meaning to contact Spark about it but haven't to around to do it. Other then that I would say it's a great light.
I guess you've seen the beamshots in my thread: http://budgetlightforum.cz.cc/node/1610