Think Wise wrote:The only light under 10w that I would put in my house that uses a mr16/gu10 format is something with the new CREE MTG chip every other 'cree' advertised product could be put together by the guy next door.
What I see on these DIY forums is lots of people wanting to test everything out by themselves and this process gets undertaken by lots of people yielding different results.
All that needs to be found out about a product is the chip used and who packages it, nearly every other piece of information (color, cri, lumens etc.) can be then be attained. If you cant find out this information I would be staying away.
Whilst I understand what you are trying to say, it is very unfortunate that such a process only works in a world of utter honesty! The reason (some) people want to test things for themselves is that the days of manufacturer or retailer honesty are, sadly, long gone. The manufacturers "official test" results are almost aways, how shall we say, "optimistic"? The retailers figures are normally doubly so. The first generation of LED lights from a few years ago were, according to the manufacturers, the best thing since sliced bread and we should all rush out to buy them. When the second generation came along, we were told that the problems with the first ones (what poblems, they were the best thing since sliced bread weren't they?) had been sorted. And so we go on.......
At the end of the day, the buying public becomes split in to three camps:
1/ Always trust the manufacturer, no matter how bad earlier experiences were (gullible)
2/ Distrust the manufacturer, never buy the product again
3/ Distrust the manufacturer, but want to see for themselves.
I fall in to category 3, in that I have rarely seen a product (of any description) that is as good as the retailer claims, but I'm willing to try new things if I don't need to make an overly large commitment based on faith alone..... especially on faith in a person or organisation that have a clear motive (financial or otherwise) in selling a product or idea, as it is rare for a salesman to say their product isn't as good as it might be!