Why does the Strion LED HL appear brighter?

The Strion LED HL is advertised as putting out 500 lumens. The peak beam intensity and throw are comparable on paper to a lot of smaller Chinese made lights such as the Fenix PD35 and Thrunite TN12. But for some reason, the LED packs a lot more "punch" to my eyes than it's cheaper counter parts. What I mean by "punch" is, it leaves me dazed/blinded to a much greater degree than my PD35 and TN12 which supposedly put out twice the lumens and just about the same peak beam intensity.

Is there a reason for this? I recall reading on here that the more money you spend, the better light you'll get. How does this work with lights made my Stramlight and Surefire that are way more expensive, and even appear to be brighter, when in fact they're rated at much lower output than you'd expect after trying them out for yourself. Has anyone else noticed this?

Tint, temperature, beam profile, and other factors all play a huge role in how your eyes perceive brightness. Both the PD35, and TN12 are pretty well-documented and tested as having the advertised lumen output. I don't know much about the Strion HL, but maybe it's possible they are understating it's output? Do a quick search on here and see if anyone has done an in depth review of it. Selfbuilt always does a fantastic job in his reviews.

Just to add a little more on Preppeds post and thoughts.

Streamlight is most likely tightly focused beam with little spill, where as the pocket lights mentioned are spread out beams for wider area lighting.
Idk for sure but I think this is apples an oranges of types of lights.

Streamlight is truthful about output numbers, maybe some others, are not?

There are a multitude of reasons why this could be so. I will say that Surefire and Streamlight are known for having conservative figures. Also, your Streamlight may have a brighter hotspot even though the candela ratings are similar.