Neutral white?

I've been lurking and reading here for a while, and would like to ask a question.

It seems as if cool white (WC) and warm white (5C or even 7C) are quite popular and available, but neutral white is less so. Why is there very little mention of the 3A-4D color bins? Do they tend toward green tint, hard to produce, being ignored by the manufacturers, or what?

So far, I have:
Romisen RC-29 II (Aspheric) from Bryan @ Shiningbeam
Dorcy 41-4750 4AA Cyber Light

And have these on order:
Dorcy 41-4299 Rechargeable (budget thrower)
Dorcy 41-1080 Rechargeable 500 Lumen Cyber Spotlight

The Romisen and Dorcy 41-4750 both seem to be cool white, with the Romisen being decidedly the cooler of the two.

Thanks for any input,
John-Galt :thanks:

5A/5B are by far the most common "neutral/warm" tints commonly available in lights.

Good question. I actually prefer the 4A-C color bins for neutral white. It may be that manufacturers aren't able to source them in sufficient numbers. Even if they could I am not sure they would invest in something they aren't sure would sell. Unfortunately it seems the majority of flashlight buyers just want whatever is brightest without a thought about what difference the tint makes.:shakehead

This is also one of my curiosities - having seen the cool whites and [near] warm whites (WC, WD, 4C) - and comparing them to daylight, it seems that daylight always falls somewhere 'in between'. I'd love to try out some WJ/3A tints, but no flashlights I've seen seem to offer them.

Is it just hard to manufacture those tints, or just a lack of demand?

Unfortunately it seems the majority of flashlight buyers just want whatever is brightest without a thought about what difference the tint makes.:shakehead

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Why is it "unfortunate" ?

It isn't just a question of wanting the brightest regardless of tint. People have different preferences and there are also differences in colour perception between individuals.

"without a thought" ? Are you really trying to imply that someone who has a different preference to you must not have thought about it ?

Life is better in general if we try to respect our differences. If you prefer a certain tint, that's great, but if others prefer something else, that's up to them.

Moonshadow said:

Why is it "unfortunate" ?

It isn't just a question of wanting the brightest regardless of tint. People have different preferences and there are also differences in colour perception between individuals.

"without a thought" ? Are you really trying to imply that someone who has a different preference to you must not have thought about it ?

Life is better in general if we try to respect our differences. If you prefer a certain tint, that's great, but if others prefer something else, that's up to them.

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I agree.

it seems the majority of flashlight buyers just want whatever is brightest without a thought about what difference the tint makes

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Times are changing IMO. Look how fast the commitment list filled up for the Mini AA.

Why is it "unfortunate" ?

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I feel it is unfortunate from a personal standpoint because the majority of users that want the brightest means that the demand for the warm tints poster and I desire will ensure that new lights will not be introduced as quickly or plentifully.

Moonshadow said:

Why is it "unfortunate" ?

It isn't just a question of wanting the brightest regardless of tint. People have different preferences and there are also differences in colour perception between individuals.

"without a thought" ? Are you really trying to imply that someone who has a different preference to you must not have thought about it ?

Life is better in general if we try to respect our differences. If you prefer a certain tint, that's great, but if others prefer something else, that's up to them.

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Ok......I believe this particular issue has been hashed out on the forum enough so lets put it to rest and let me clarify. I am not referring to the individuals on CPF who have actually seen the difference (like yourself obviously) and prefer cool white tints.
I am referring to the one time purchase individual who has no idea what a tint bin is. When this individual searches the internet for what he/she thinks will be the last/only flashlight they ever buy I believe it is very safe to assume they will choose the brightest for whatever money they have to spend. These folks are the majority (as referred to in my first post) considering a world population of 6 billion and the relatively small population of CPFers.

pobox1475 said:

Times are changing IMO. Look how fast the commitment list filled up for the Mini AA.

I feel it is unfortunate from a personal standpoint because the majority of users that want the brightest means that the demand for the warm tints poster and I desire will ensure that new lights will not be introduced as quickly or plentifully.

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Very well said. "Unfortunate" because not everyones preferences are being represented equally.

pobox1475 said:

Times are changing IMO. Look how fast the commitment list filled up for the Mini AA.

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But there are 85,000 members and 9,300 active members on this forum, so that is just a drop in the bucket.

I think it's a mix of a few things, cost being the biggest. Different packaging/labeling for the different tints, placing multiple smaller orders of LEDs instead of one big homogeneous one, and so on. The more options, the more expensive it is to make and market. The other issue is that the vast majority of flashlight buyers just don't care, which lowers demand. Look at how many direct-drive 3 AAA lights with bunches of blueish 5mm LEDs are offered for sale in retail stores compared to the sorts of lights the average member here buys online.

Whoa, when I first saw this thread this morning I freaked, and thought my account had been hacked.

Weird coincidence, eh?


I don't own any neutral white lights, but I'm looking for one, to add to the old collection. I think it also depends on what you have neen using.

Before I really got into lights, I had a couple of mini mags, then I got a Streamlight Clip mate, which I liked. That's is what first got me into LED's, I guess. Tired of the crappy battery life of the inca. bulbs, I searched for, and got a Nite-Ize three "white"LED drop in. Worked great, and, as a plus, got better battery life.
Later, my dad got a Nite-Ize one watt drop in, or his (soon to become mine) mini-mag. I loved it, had a nice, creamy white tint, and good throw. Well, that broke after a couple of drops, so I looked for others. I ended up picking up a Nuwai 1/2 watt LED flashlight. I liked it too. Had good ouptut, reasonable beam, and reasonable white output. Almost as white as my nite-Ize one watt drop in, and had it for years, and only put two sets of batteries into it (unbelievable, I know, a real battery vampire).

Well, compare to my Mini-Mag LED, it has a crappy, ringy, blue beam, horrible ouptut, and mediocre throw. And my Fenix LD20 is even better!

All depends on your perspective, I guess.

Warm tints are definitely not just for a few flashaholics on the forum. Go to your local Walmart/Home Depot/etc. and take a look at the X-mas lights. Whole lot of warm strings of LEDs are flying off the shelves.

Moonshadow said:

Why is it "unfortunate" ?

It isn't just a question of wanting the brightest regardless of tint. People have different preferences and there are also differences in colour perception between individuals.

"without a thought" ? Are you really trying to imply that someone who has a different preference to you must not have thought about it ?

Life is better in general if we try to respect our differences. If you prefer a certain tint, that's great, but if others prefer something else, that's up to them.

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Although this pretty well represents my feelings on the matter, I see from the clarification in his subsequent post that I also agree with his original statements even though I was thinking of making a post similar to yours.

On the other hand I just gave away two Quark AAw with 5A's in them to complete novices and they both picked them with a strong emphasis on how much easier the tint was on their eyes, and also it did colors.

I know an excellent way for you to try out a neutral tint, and a brand new light as well, by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post! Plus you'll be helping us out in assuring we get the 100 lights necessary for this to become reality!

mitro said:

Warm tints are definitely not just for a few flashaholics on the forum. Go to your local Walmart/Home Depot/etc. and take a look at the X-mas lights. Whole lot of warm strings of LEDs are flying off the shelves.

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As much as I love neutrals, I find the cool whites a lot more attractive on a tree, kind of gives it more of a wintry look to it.

There is a gas station that I drive by that was digging up the parking lot and doing a pretty big renovation. They opened back up about two weeks ago and they installed cool white led fixtures in the canopy at the pump.

It looks dead! Every color looks wrong, it looks cold at the pumps (and the weather is starting to get cold) and I wouldn't want to stop there. There are only four pumps, but I haven't seen more than 2 cars at the pumps yet.

I think the trend of selling cold white led fixtures based on the numbers will present an interesting effect on the aesthetics of commercial property and the mood of people everywhere over the next decade.

for a long time i didn't know the difference between cool and warm until i actually bought a neutral white light. once you actually have a neutral white light to compare to, you can decide what you like.

i did emitter swaps on three of my cools to make them warm and sold the rest of my cools except for my TK40.

warm/neutral white is much more pleasing to my eye. the colors look way better. cool white makes me feel like i have ghost vision.

i highly doubt i will ever buy another cool white again.

they should sell a cheap cool/neutral light for newbies. a simple light with minimal features that has the most common cool emitter and the most common neutral emitter that you can toggle back and forth. they could probably make something pretty cheap. it would have saved me a lot of time and money and i think it would be neat for demonstration purposes. weird idea i know, but beam shots just aren't enough. you need to be able to see for yourself.

=( Can we stay on topic and not let this become yet another of those tint preference topics?

I'd like to find out more about these missing WJ/3A tints without having all this 'neutral is better', 'cool is better' debates - enough of those already and everyone is going to have their preference.

I apologize for going off topic but,

Could someone please enlighten me what is a WJ/3A tint? Or some other neutral/warm white tints? The only neutral white I have is a Quark with XP-E Q3-5A. Maybe if someone could use the XP-E Q3-5A as a benchmark and explain to me where those other tints fall in terms of warmness I would appreciate very much. What are the difference also between the Q3-5A and Q3-5B? And Q3 versus Q4? I am going nuts trying to understand.

pjandyho said:

Could someone please enlighten me what is a WJ/3A tint? Or some other neutral/warm white tints?

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Download Cree's XPE binning document here:

http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXP_B&L.pdf

...and look at pages 9 & 10 to get an idea of where the bins fall relative to each other.

For more context, read this article on the CIE 1931 color space:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_1931_color_space

share & enjoy

-Jeff