With every vehicle I have owned, I have searched for ways of optimizing the headlight performance. I just picked up my LR4 today, and, although I believe the halogen headlights in it are already pretty good, I know there is probably more performance to be eeked out.
After reading all 24 pages of this thread, however, I'm wondering if there isn't some confusion here between color temperature (measured in Kelvin) and light output (measured in lumens).
Lumens are easy. More is almost always better.
Color temperature is where things can get confusing and misleading, however. Contrary to popular belief, a warmer color temperature (closer to 3000K) is generally more revealing than a colder color temperature (closer to 6000K), no matter the weather.
Which is why this thread perplexes me. For example, the first post in this thread recommended Phillips Crystalvision H11 bulbs, and many more subsequent posters have done so too. Everyone who tries them reports back with rave results.
These bulbs appear to be just blue-tinted standard halogen bulbs, however. A bulb that is nothing more than a blue-tinted version of a standard bulb has degraded performance. Picture wearing the old-style 3D glasses, with one red lens and one blue lens.
Looking at Phillips' website, their "vision" line of bulbs state that they produce 30% greater light than a standard halogen bulb. The "vision" line specify that their
output is 1350 lumens. If their marketing is to be believed, this means a standard Philips halogen bulb (which I cannot find on their website) is around 1038 lumens.
The Philips Crystalvision bulbs recommended in this thread
output 900 lumens. This tells me that there is no technology in the bulbs other than a blue tint, which actually degrades the performance of the bulb.
So, without saying what I'm saying, I wonder if people who love these bulbs aren't just swayed by they HID-like colder color-temperature? Because, looking at the numbers, they appear to actually perform significantly worse than standard bulbs.
Please let me know if I am missing something here.
So what is an upgrade? H9 bulbs can be modified to fit in H11 housings and to use H11 connections. Most H9 bulbs have light output of over 2,000 lumens at a cost of a 65watt bulb instead of a 55 watt bulb. This small increase shouldn't tax the wiring too much to be prohibitive.
Has anyone tried an H9 bulb in their LR4? I will order some and see how well they work.