Nearly half of U.S. households use LED bulbs for all or most of their indoor lighting

[orbital]

+

Full retro bulbs..

 

[JustAnOldFashionedLEDGuy]

...says the lonely keyboard warrior!

You really have no idea what you're talking about concerning the resurgence of sales in both records and turntables, not to mention the fact that the continued popularity of tube amplifiers.

The "resurgence" of vinyl is at best a dead cat bounce. Streaming is enormous in comparison. Did you know a good number of people who buy records don't even have something to play them on, and most that do are not using high end equipment.

Hard to find anyone but old stuck in the past audiophiles with tube amplifiers. Not exclusively, but not too far off. They are great if you don't understand amplifiers and why they sound like they do, which has little to do with the marketing of course. Both are normally coupled to stupidly expensive jewellery, I mean cables, that do far more to stroke the owners ego than they will improve sound. I looked in an illustrated dictionary. There is a picture of an audiophile next to the word gullible

 

[JustAnOldFashionedLEDGuy]

Bottom line is that I don't buy the energy savings argument, particularly in an area where the federal government is trying to get us to stop using fossil fuels. Saving $225 a year powering lights is meaningless if I just have to spend $225 to power the electric heater instead.

Is it never summer where you live? Can't imagine it is much colder where you live than where I live. Heat runs 6 months of the year, for varying times of course. Gas heat has always been far cheaper than electricity, and when we switch soon to a heat pump, again, the bulb will make quite an inefficient heater.

I honestly have a really hard time remembering when the last time I changed a failed LED bulb was. I also have a mix of 2700, 3000, 4000K and 5000K in my house and quite a few CCT tunable now as well. Good luck having that with your incandescent.

 

[JustAnOldFashionedLEDGuy]

1) The fixtures must have a user adjustable CCT between 2700K and 6500K to suit user preferences.
2) The minimum CRI must be 90.
3) The fixture must be dimmable.
4) At full intensity there must be enough output from the fixture(s) to light the room to a certain lux (this can vary depending upon the type of room). No idea what the exact numbers should be.
5) The fixture must have a warranted lifetime of at least 100,000 hours.
6) The overall fixture efficiency must be at least 125 lumens per watt.

- In California, minimum CRI must be 90. That increases energy usage.
- In California most lights must be dimmable
- A 100K warranted lifetime totally unnecessary for home use, and even for commercial questionable
- 125 lumens per watt ... perfect being the enemy of good. Try that with 2700K, 90CRI, with power supply losses, optical losses (forcing visually poor designs), etc.
- Minimum lux in room -- standard building code already there

User adjustable CCT --- how? do I climb on a ladder? ZIgbee? .. BT .... wired? ..

Fortunately the people who make these decisions while not perfect, have a bit more practical experience.

 

[Dave_H]

User adjustable CCT --- how? do I climb on a ladder? ZIgbee? .. BT .... wired? ..

Some specialty A19, small spot bulbs, and ceiling lamps, offer 3-5 CCT settings which they achieve by mixing (or not) two sets of LEDs. Switch mechanism ranges from switch on body, rotary switch in base (klutzy), to toggling power switch (convenient); some use dimmer but have tint v. brightness range limitations.


Besides duplicating/wasting LEDs in a lot of cases, it appears not to do efficacy much good. A good aspect is when using mid-range e.g. 4000K both sets are on at lower intensity, which could prolong LED life, assuming a good thermal design. However, LEDs may not be the limiting factor (drivers fail). I can't comment on CRI.

Dave

 

[JustAnOldFashionedLEDGuy]

Some specialty A19, small spot bulbs, and ceiling lamps, offer 3-5 CCT settings which they achieve by mixing (or not) two sets of LEDs. Switch mechanism ranges from switch on body, rotary switch in base (klutzy), to toggling power switch (convenient); some use dimmer but have tint v. brightness range limitations.

Dave

I understand the market of what is out there, but forcing it on installation makes no sense as it is not reasonable without remote controls, of which there is no suitable standard.

 

[bridgman]

Is it never summer where you live? Can't imagine it is much colder where you live than where I live. Heat runs 6 months of the year, for varying times of course. Gas heat has always been far cheaper than electricity, and when we switch soon to a heat pump, again, the bulb will make quite an inefficient heater.

Lots of summer, but I tend to go to sleep around the time it gets dark so not much draw on incandescent lighting. Any time I need light when not in a heating cycle I use LED, but that is a pretty small part of the demand.

Agree that gas should be cheaper than electricity, but up here the government is trying really hard to eliminate any use of fossil fuels even when they are less expensive than electricity.

In their minds electricity generated with fossil fuels is Good while direct use of the fossil fuels is Evil. I don't know how to deal with that kind of disconnect from reality.

 

[LEDphile]

I understand the market of what is out there, but forcing it on installation makes no sense as it is not reasonable without remote controls, of which there is no suitable standard.

I suspect the proliferation of the selectable-CCT products is due primarily to the extra cost of the CCT selection (LEDs and selection mechanism) becoming less than the logistical costs of having a different SKU for each CCT. Any benefit to the consumer aside from the CCT you want not being out of stock is completely incidental.

 

[kaichu dento]

The "resurgence" of vinyl is at best a dead cat bounce. Streaming is enormous in comparison. Did you know a good number of people who buy records don't even have something to play them on, and most that do are not using high end equipment.

Hard to find anyone but old stuck in the past audiophiles with tube amplifiers.

Pretty incredulous that so many record buyers are just simply collecting them, but it's also true that there is a fringe out there who has actually given a new market to turntables, and a couple of my friends are in that grouping. Not me though.

Tube amplifiers are a totally different subject though and very far from fringe, but then you'd have to be a guitar player to even have an inkling of how much difference there is playing through a tube amp and it's why so many of us that tried getting away from them found ourselves right back where we started.

 

[kaichu dento]

- In California…
- In California…the people who make these decisions while not perfect, have a bit more practical experience.

LoL! California legislation should never be introduced into a conversation about anything practical…or rational either!

 

[JustAnOldFashionedLEDGuy]

In their minds electricity generated with fossil fuels is Good while direct use of the fossil fuels is Evil. I don't know how to deal with that kind of disconnect from reality.

It is rather stupid isn't it given the efficiency gap between electricity generation with thermal and heating.

 

[JustAnOldFashionedLEDGuy]

I suspect the proliferation of the selectable-CCT products is due primarily to the extra cost of the CCT selection (LEDs and selection mechanism) becoming less than the logistical costs of having a different SKU for each CCT. Any benefit to the consumer aside from the CCT you want not being out of stock is completely incidental.

Pretty much.

 

[JustAnOldFashionedLEDGuy]

Tube amplifiers are a totally different subject though and very far from fringe, but then you'd have to be a guitar player to even have an inkling of how much difference there is playing through a tube amp and it's why so many of us that tried getting away from them found ourselves right back where we started.

But creating art and reproducing art are not the same thing. What makes tubes great in guitar amps is what makes them poor for home audio (or at least less than ideal).

 

[kaichu dento]

But creating art and reproducing art are not the same thing. What makes tubes great in guitar amps is what makes them poor for home audio (or at least less than ideal).

Tube guitar amps is all I ever talk about, because it's all I know. Never had anything but solid state for....well, everything else!

 

[PhotonWrangler]

One of the few advantages of tubes vs solid state is that you can overdrive a tube and it usually won't blow out. I've driven a tube so hard that the plate electrode glowed red but it just kept working. Try that with a transistor and

 

[ledbetter]

For Energy Star qualification (see https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/ENERGY STAR Lamps V2.1 Final Specification_1.pdf ), a sample size of 10 units is run to 25% of the rated lifetime claim by the manufacturer, with requirements for ambient temperature and that the output be at least a certain percentage of the initial output. No failures are allowed. Given that the minimum test length for Energy Star is 6k hours (for a 25k hour lifetime rating), none of those lamps should be failing after a year and a half (at 12 hours of operation a day), and all of those lamps would have paid for themselves at 4 cents/kWh.

More early failure of Great Eagle brand and others has led me to only buy Cree brand bulbs lately. The Energy Star list is good starting point for future purchases. Tired of the bargain brands lasting fewer hours than incandescents.

 

[JustAnOldFashionedLEDGuy]

More early failure of Great Eagle brand and others has led me to only buy Cree brand bulbs lately. The Energy Star list is good starting point for future purchases. Tired of the bargain brands lasting fewer hours than incandescents.

I would almost guarantee they are just Cree in name, made in some factory in China and not with Cree LEDs. Hopefully they at least insist on good quality control. There are some large factories there that do a good job.

 

[N8N]

An entire generation will be raised knowing only 80 CRI indoor lighting

I've always been looking for high CRI even since the CFL days. The Feit Electric "Enhance" bulbs sold at Costco are advertised as being 90+ CRI and I've found them to be excellent in terms of dimmability and quietness. They're almost free here in MD too with the incentives. I'm using them almost exclusively; I've found them to compare favorably in use to the Cree branded bulbs that I've also tried. (NB: I tried some "100W equivalent" Feits maybe 4-5 years ago and while the "60W equivalent" ones were excellent the 100W ones were trash; they worked just as well, but for a very short period of time. Hopefully they're better now.)

 

[N8N]

The "resurgence" of vinyl is at best a dead cat bounce. Streaming is enormous in comparison. Did you know a good number of people who buy records don't even have something to play them on, and most that do are not using high end equipment.

Hard to find anyone but old stuck in the past audiophiles with tube amplifiers. Not exclusively, but not too far off. They are great if you don't understand amplifiers and why they sound like they do, which has little to do with the marketing of course. Both are normally coupled to stupidly expensive jewellery, I mean cables, that do far more to stroke the owners ego than they will improve sound. I looked in an illustrated dictionary. There is a picture of an audiophile next to the word gullible

While there is a significant subset of audiophiles that do buy some serious snake oil, I guarantee you that just plain old good original pressings from the heyday of vinyl - 60s through early 90s - played on my Technics SL1200 Mk2 (AKA "ones and twos" AKA a turntable that many audiophiles look down their noses at as a "DJ table") with vintage Audio Technica cartridge and JICO Shibata stylus will compare quite favorably to your streams, unless you are streaming at CD quality or better (that is, Qobuz or Tidal in the US, not Spotify). My circa 1963 HH Scott receiver with 7591 outputs would also like a word.

I'm not pooh poohing streaming - I have a Qobuz subscription and love it. However, some time after the CD era we lost our way and are only coming back to the quality of CDs today (however, I'm shameless, and whenever I have some time to kill after work, root through both the CD and LP bins at Value Village to flesh out my collection. We're finally getting to the point though that save for some rarities, most of my collection can actually be streamed through Qobuz, so now it's more of an affectation than a necessity as it was say 10 years ago.)

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I've heard some remastered CDs where they squashed out a lot of the dynamic range compared to the original disc, apparently in an effort to make the sound seem fuller or louder. It's ironic in a way that this technique is a throwback to the days of vinyl mastering, where you had to limit dynamic range to keep the stylus from jumping out of the groove.