To me, the LX2 has a less defined but ever so slightly larger hotspot than the E2DL. They both have marginal spill (I'm a big McGizmo Haiku XPG fan) and rings at the periphery. The E2DL's hotspot MAY be a tad brighter, but when I swapped the LX2 head onto the E2DL body, I thought it was a tad brighter; it's probably not a detectable difference with the human eye. The E2DL head on the LX2 body results in a correctly functioning 5 lumen/200 lumen E2DL head with the LX2 UI: 5 lumen low first (lower than the LX2), then high. The LX2 head on the E2DL body will only run on high. You cannot fast click and get the low to come on. I prefer the lower low of the E2DL and will probably keep the E2DL head on the LX2 body.
BTW, I measured the tailcap resistance of the LX2 1st stage at 9.6 ohms.
Tailcap amp draws with fresh PRIMARY Surefire 123's:
E2DL (200/5 lumen model bought 2 months ago) 800 mA high 32 mA low
LX2 (200/15 Lumen model bought 1 week ago) 830 mA high 32 mA low which is 5.21 watts battery draw on high.
Both will run a bit dimmer on a single Li-ion source (4.2 volts); at this reduced level both lights have the same output and I cannot distinguish between the two.
Both run with 2x CR123A (AW brand rechargeable) with no stuttering or problems at all. They seem to be a bit brighter on the rechargeables; I compared the LX2 on RCR to the E2DL on primaries and the LX2 was noticeably brighter. Since they look equally bright when they're both running the same battery type, I take this to mean the lights are brighter on rechargeables.
Tailcap draw on 2 x RCR123A RECHARGEABLES (8.32 volts tested):
LX2: 530 mA High for 4.41 watts battery draw.
Tailcap draw on 1x RCR123A RECHARGEABLE (4.20 volts tested):
LX2: 515 mA High for 2.16 watts battery draw.
The LX2 and the E2DL will not light with a single fresh primary 123A cell.
The E2DL WILL fit an AW 17670 cell with the silver decal removed. The LX2 refuses to fit the cell under any circumstances.
It's very interesting to me that the higher rechargeable voltages result in less power being drawn from the batteries but the output is at least the same if not brighter. I don't have a means to test current or voltage at the LED; only the battery side and that should only be taken on a relative basis given my Fluke 179's leads have 0.4 ohms of resistance.
My last observation is that the low level of both seems to result in the same power being sucked from the batteries. Since the LX2 has 15 lumens versus the 5 lumens of the E2DL, and appears to be least twice as bright, the LX2 seems to be the winner in that regard- free lumens. Surefire rates the low runtime of the E2DL as 76 hours versus the 47 hours of the LX2, but as I've shown, the amp draws appear to be the same and runtime should be identical. I'm going to put fresh primaries in both and turn them on low and find out what happens.
