Will I be disappointed?

[AlphaZen]

I have been running the Quark Mini AA on a 14500 and have been thoroughly impressed. Now I am thinking of adding the Quark Tactical 123 to my lineup, because I want a clicky. I just found out here that the Mini AA is putting out 323 lumens when turned on in high. I know it is subjective, but will the listed 206 lumens of the Quark 123 be similar enough, or am I spoiled?

 

[ti-force]

I have been running the Quark Mini AA on a 14500 and have been thoroughly impressed. Now I am thinking of adding the Quark Tactical 123 to my lineup, because I want a clicky. I just found out here that the Mini AA is putting out 323 lumens when turned on in high. I know it is subjective, but will the listed 206 lumens of the Quark 123 be similar enough, or am I spoiled?

Click on the link below for some OTF lumens readings of just about the whole Quark lineup. I also posted OTF numbers for different modes. Maybe you will find it useful.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=278032

 

[AlphaZen]

That is helpful. Thanks for the response and your work, ti-force.

 

[LEDninja]

The 323 lumens is for the 1st second with a freshly charged battery. By the 3rd minute it is 286 lumens and still dropping. That is about 88% of initial.
Between 30 seconds and 3 minutes the drop is 306-286=20 lumens.

From tri-force data, the XPG-R5 with RCR123A starts off at 224 dropping to 200 at 3 minutes. That is about 94% of initial.
Between 30 seconds and 3 minutes the drop is 208.5-200=8.5 lumens.

I suspect somewhere between 15-20 minutes the 2 lights will be identical in brightness.
If you do not notice the drop in useful brightness in your Mini AA/14500 over the 1st 15 minutes, you should find the Quark 123 equally useful.
You will notice the difference in initial brightness especially when you do A-B testing.

You are not likely to recharge your batteries after every 1 second of use so comparing initial brightness is an academic study. It is better to use a number halfway in the runtime. In this case the 3 minute number is the closest.