She probably didn’t get any likes because she last posted in November 2022 and the new BLF format (that allows likes/thanks) didn’t exist back then. 
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For an EDC ligh,t I prefer a reflector with a 20° hot spot and a 80° spill balanced beam to cover most applications. For the rest, it really depends what the light is used for.
I’ve reviewed a bunch of lights and my consensus is reflectors are preferable. optics have their place of course and advantages (more compact, lighter, cheaper to make).
I prefer reflectors. They can produce both a hotspot for throw and a well defined spill that concentrates all of the spill around the hotspot allowing for both a throwy and floody light. I feel like TIR can do very good spot, or very good flood, but can’t do both. I feel with TIRs being used for flood, all of the spill from the hotspot has too sharp of a cutoff, and if you have a wide hotspot, you have no throw. TIRs feel like an either/or situation, whereas reflectors feel like the best of both worlds. I don’t ever need the ultra wide spill of a TIR.
BTW , what about Fresnel lens ? ;))
Diffusion film.
I got so many lights with shiite beams, whether ringy or other artifacts in the beam, beams with a piss-yellow corona around the hotspot, fried-egg beams, pretty much anything that uses those hateful little XP-G3s, that I just slap on heavily-diffused DF and get a nice smooth beam with a gentle gradient from center to periphery.
As much as I love that infamous Tacklife light that’s built like a tank, I’d never ever use it as-is, but with DF in front, it’s my most-used light that I keep in the kitchen. It’s got a retarded UI that always starts on high and goes into blinkies if you try clicking too fast, but who cares? I just click on and it lights up a nice blanket of light (admittedly cold-white) that I use for grubbling around in dark cabinets or to take down to the basement. It’s got an assload of thermal mass so doesn’t step down that quickly, either.
Same for every Luxpro light I got, too. Hateful little G3s with disgusting fried-egg beams and piss-yellow coronas accentuating the worst of the worst aspects of G3s, yet with nice heavily-diffused DF in front, I used to use them similarly as nice floody on/off lights.
For that particular use-case, I like 'em even more than what a TIR lens could give.
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My only TIR lights are AAA diameter. Ordered a convoy M21H with all the available TIR options as add-ons to see what the fuss is about 
The overall question of reflector Vs TIR is perhaps too simplistic, TIR can be clear and give a well defined spot or have the honeycomb texture on the front which appears to act like diffusion film would do on a reflector.
Covering light with type so so idea. Minus brightness = less efficiency.
Diffusion film? Someone already measured it, and it’s only a few % less light.
100% brighter only looks ~30% brighter visually, so ~3%-5% less light that DF eats up would be mostly imperceptible.
People dedome lights for a smaller brighter hotspot, and that eats up WAY more light than DF ever would.
So even 5% less light, for a 1000% better beam? I’ll take it. Any day, any time.
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I prefer TIR, I love the wide soft spill instead of the tunnel effect you get with a reflector.
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Both !
Is this a coincidence? Most of my favorite thrower and high power lights have reflectors, and most of my small Nichia lights have TIR’s.
I’ve noted that a TIR seems very versatile. It could be anything that the designer wants: more spill or less spill, throw vs flood. IMvHO, TIR beam also tends to be overall “cleaner”, with less ring artifact for example. All that said, I love my throwers with reflectors - like my beloved Wurkkos with SBT90.2. 
In picture below (note for white-walling beam shots, how you could tell a reflector lens is it has that sharp border of the spill, sudden fall-off from light to dark, vs TIR has soft border), how versatile is TIR? Difference between two TIR designs: Olight M2 Pro Warrior TIR has bright spill large hotspot, whereas IF22a has tiny hotspot and practically no spill, the classic pencil beam. I much prefer Olight’s beam but this is strictly personal preference.
Tunnel effect is a good term to describe the reflector spill. I hate that hard cut off spill created by reflectors so for me it’s TIR all the way.
I even mod the reflector lights to TIRs when possible. The ability of TIR to shape both the hotspot and spill can give you all sorts of weird and wonderful beam shapes. The reflector spill is uncontrolled, direct illumination from the emitter.
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You think the IF22A has a pencil beam… try the CatMini. 
Not as much oomf powerwise, but that reaches out pretty far for such a tiny little donk.
Both have very very similar TIR lenses, if not identical.
I’m a sucker for TIR lenses. That beautiful borderless transition to spill or almost no spill at all. Convoy M21H, just change TIRs within seconds and get the beam profile you like! I understand that TIRs have more losses than reflectors but I just love them. And they can have RGB leds too!
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TIR fir multi emitter lights or floody lights in general and and an old school smooth reflector for a thrower.
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Ah I’d forgotten I’d posted this. The M21H is good! Kinda wish I’d ordered the GT FC40 as I’m yet to own a light with this emitter.
The TIR is the largest in my “collection” of lights, I ordered pretty much all the TIR options Simon offers, I think I’ve settled on the 8° option with my XHP70.3 HI R9050.
Now… Where can I find a light with a bigger TIR…?
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I’m sure you meant, where can you find a light to cram this 80mm TIR into?
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https://www.carclo-optics.com/products/optic-10158?optic_type=75
I was thinking this, but 150mm.
DJozz made a sketch in the early days of the BLF GT design that was essentially a battery box with the ?reflector mounted to the side- like a shortened version of a Maxabeam. I’d love to see a version with one or more of these TIR lenses…
I built an M21H with an FFL505A 3500k in it. And it is hands down my favorite light. I like it even better than my DM11 w/XHP50.3 HI 5000k, which is a damn good light. The color of the FFL is beautiful and the beam with the TiR is damn near perfect!
I’ve been putting GITD tape on the inside of the lights with a TiR and it gives the light a spooky kinda affect when it’s turned off.
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