geepondy
Flashlight Enthusiast
Or I should say, my oh my those funny Luxeons.....Why are they all so different? I know they're coded into lot bins with different ratings for brightness, tint etc. but how can one be so different from another? Received the KL1 today. Of course without saying the fit, finish and build quality is superb. Very clear optics, very smooth insertion whether mating it to either E1 or E2. Comparing the output to my two best Luxeon lights, a fairly recent Arc LS second and my badboy yellow minimag conversion, the KL1 wins hands down in brightness comparison. The LS and Badboy are very close to each other and the Kl1 is significantly brighter. Hard to tell by the naked eye but I would have to say maybe a third brighter at least in the center hotspot area. But the tint is a different story. The Arc LS has a fairly white hotspot and a slight at least compared to other Luxeon's I've seen, green corona. The badboy has a broad white, perhaps just a touch violet hotspot with a very weak brownish/green corona. The KL1 has a noticeable violet tint across the whole spectrum, particularly on the outer edge of the corona. The tint is almost to the point of being pinkish in color. I must admit I was not expecting the Surefire product to be deviated quite this far off center white. For my personal tastes for brightness I like the Kl1 but for beam quality I think my badboy yellow is still the best. In all three lights the beam deficiencies are much less noticeable in real life applications then in shining them against a white wall and critically examining the beam. I will try to take and post beam shots comparing the three within the next couple of days if people are interested. You've seen an awful lot of beam pictures so probably would be nothing earth shattering.
