There are several issues at work here.
If there is stuff in the air (raindrops, snowflakes, fog, dust) you should be on low beam, not high. There's no control of glare and upward light in the focus and formation of the high beam pattern, so you will always get more backscatter on high beam than on low beam, no matter what bulbs you're running.
There is
never an actual improvement with Sylvania Silver Star/Ultra or any of the other blue-glass "whiter light" bulbs. They put out
less light, because the blue tinted glass blocks a fairly significant portion of the light that would otherwise reach the road and help you see. Despite the advertising (and they're spending a great deal of money on lots of advertising for these bulbs!), the tinted ("whiter") light from these bulbs does not help you see. In addition, a lower proportion of the light that does make it past the blue glass is actually usable, because of the way our visual system works with light of different wavelengths. The way these "whiter" bulbs work is by filtering out (blocking) a portion of the yellow light coming from the filament. It is commonly but incorrectly believed that yellow, obtained by filtering out/blocking most of the blue light, is the best color for fog lights because "yellow light penetrates fog better". That's not the correct explanation; in fact, our eyes and visual system have a significantly easier time processing what we see in reduced-contrast conditions (rain, fog, snow...) when the blue wavelengths are suppressed/reduced. The opposite is also true: By suppressing the yellow light and weighting the output of the bulb more towards blue (the so called "whiter" light), you're making it much tougher on your eyes and visual system whenever the weather's less than perfect. And there's no counterbalancing benefit when the weather
is perfect, either...so overall, this kind of bulb is never a benefit, and is a significant drawback in bad weather.
The Osram Silverstar is one of several "Plus 50" bulbs with colorless clear glass (no light-blocking filter). Others include Philips Vision Plus and Narva Range Power +50. As a group, this kind of bulb always gives better headlamp performance, and better seeing, than any of the blue-glass "whiter light" bulbs.
The newest development is "Plus 80" (Philips Xtreme Power) and "Plus 90" (Osram Night Breaker) bulbs. These are a step above the Plus 50 bulbs. The Night Breakers have some areas of blue-tinted glass, but there's a colorless clear ring window surrounding the low beam filament, so most of the reflector has an unfiltered view of the filament and the tinted light is mostly at the outer portions of the beam rather than the safety-critical central main area of the beam. But the high beam filament looks through blue-tinted glass, just like with the Sylvanias.
There are obviously lots of options in H4 bulbs. You can get standard bulbs, long life bulbs, +30, +50, +80/+90...and those are just the ones that tend to get advertised and marketed. It's easy to get swept up in the fancy claims and sexy packaging. If you take a look at
Candlepower's H4 page (not affiliated with this forum despite the name) you'll see all the familiar options, but take a close look at the fifth bulb down. Osram 70/65w ultra high efficiency. This one has no light-blocking colored glass, puts out 2000/1350 lumens, which is more than
any 60/55w bulb, but is compatible with stock unmodified wiring and costs less than the top of the (advertised) line Night Breaker. I have these in a few of my cars with H4 headlights, without upgraded wires. Zero heat problems and headlight performance is terrific.
More info (a lot more info) in
this post .
Good luck!
The Osram Silverstar looks like a nice alternative! At local Costco, they sell heavy blue tinted Phillips headlight... After reading many websites about blue tinted bulbs I will never try them. How are the Sylvania Xtravision? -
