# Neutral White (Warm Tinted) - Quark AA2 Neutral White Comparison Review



## UnknownVT (Jul 31, 2009)

There's been quite a bit of recent interest in Neutral white (Warm) Tinted LEDs.

Once again I have by the kind courtesy of 4Sevens a Quark AA2 Neutral White for review -

*Important Note* of self-correction - 
I have been calling these LEDs "Warm" tinted 
(my excuse: since they are "warm" when compared to regular cool white LEDs).

_BUT_ for clarity - 
Cree designs these XR-E Q3 5A LEDs "*neutral white*" - which are in the color temperature (CCT) range of 5,000 – 3,700 degK. 
(Q3 5A = 4,300 degK)
Cree does have separately *warm* *white* LEDs - that are in the color temperature range 3,700 – 2,600 degK.
For comparison Cree's cool whites are in the range 10,000 – 5,000 degK. 

Size -





externally it is identical to the regular cool white Quark AA2. The Neutral White version has the regular clip still attached - whereas the other Quark AA2 has the clever rubber strap attached.

Head -




hmmmm... I think in this shot one can just make out that the Neutral White LEDs seem to have a bit more brown reflected in the reflector(s).

How does it compare?
I only have one other Neutral White/"warm" LED flashlight - but I'm sure like others I'd like to see how a Neutral White light compares to a regular cool white light -

vs. regular cool white Quark AA2 - both Max and NiMH -







they seem about the same brightness level - but it is hard to tell with the different tints.

So I took those beamshots and removed the colors by desaturation -







it would appear that the regular cool white is just a bit brighter - but I certainly couldn't tell just eyeballing the beams even when side-by-side - so in practice it probably would not make much practical difference in the difference in brightness - BUT the tint difference may be important - see later.....

vs. Fenix LD20 - both Max and NiMH







it seems that the Fenix LD20 may be a just a bit brighter - but then its beam is noticeably narrower than the Quark AA2 Neutral White. Also notice how much nicer the Quark's beam is - it is due to the self centering LED to reflector design - this is a point worth emphasizing as it is a definite incremental improvement in flashlight design.

vs. Fenix L2D-RB100 (my favorite regular tint) both Max and NiMH







in real-life and and in isolation the RB-100 tend to have a somewhat brownish/pinkish tint - but in comparison with a true Neutral White (warm tint) - it looks blueish..... The levels look very comparable.

vs. NiteCore EZ AA-W (Warm tint) both on Max and NiMH (obviously the EZ-AA is a single AA light)







the NiteCore EZ-AA actually looks brighter - but its beam is considerably narrower and the Quark's hotspot is definitely brighter.
But what is more important to me is the difference in tint - the NiteCore seems more saturated deeper in color, whereas the Quark is paler. I'm not sure which I prefer - but the point is even with a noticeable tint difference neither is objectionable - whereas we tend to be very sensitive to greenish tints in cool white, and some even have problems with blueish tints....... whereas warm seems just well... warm, and differences seem less objectionable.....

OK what about color rendition - this is a not very well understood subject - evidence by many who would just quote CRI figures (incandescent are "perfect" at CRI=100 by definition - yet anyone having to see yellow on white or sort out navy blue and black will attest this is far from perfect) 

Anyway I took pictures of a Macbeth color rendition chart -



















*INDEX* to follow up parts -

Explanation for the warmer tinted Neutral white with reference to Kruithof curve - Post #*5*

Outdoor Foliage comparison beamshots - Post #*9*

Lower level comparisons and tint shift - Post #*14*

Standardized Stairway beamshot comparison - Post #*25*

Stairway hotspot comparison - Post #*26*


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## passive101 (Jul 31, 2009)

*Re: Warm Tint - Quark AA2 Warm Comparison Review*

I noticed this in my real world test of a fuse box and my bathroom walls and what is on the counter. I have to admit I do like the color rendition of that other light better, but my new quark is much better then my old P2D


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## fisk-king (Jul 31, 2009)

*Re: Warm Tint - Quark AA2 Warm Comparison Review*

just received mine in the mail today can't wait to try it out tonight!


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## passive101 (Jul 31, 2009)

*Re: Warm Tint - Quark AA2 Warm Comparison Review*

Why does the color rendition seem better on the cool white quark then on the neutral?


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## UnknownVT (Jul 31, 2009)

*Re: Warm Tint - Quark AA2 Warm Comparison Review*



passive101 said:


> Why does the color rendition seem better on the cool white quark then on the neutral?



OK here's an explanation of sorts.

I take my beamshots and the shots of the rendition chart with fixed daylight balance on my digicam.

Which means if anything deviates from "standard daylight" (about 6000deg Kelvin) it will show up.

The neutral white LEDs used in these Quarks is the Q3-5A which is rated at CCT= 4,300 degK this puts it in the yellow tinted range compared to the standard cool white which is closer to about 6,500 deg K - so standard cool white is closer to daylight - therefore seems to approximate the daylight control shot better.

Color temperature of Neutral White LEDs seem to be well chosen to be kind of in between daylight and incandescent which is in the range of 2700–3300 K.

There is a very good reason for this, most people at lower light levels tend to see/think a warmer tint is more "natural" - this is both physiology, as well of evolution/conditioning - we need to see well while light is dim - sunrise and sunset as well as by fire/candle light - hence our leaning toward amber-yellow as light lowers.

I had a long thread -

Puny LED flashlights (Not!) + COLOR RENDITION Comparison
which only started to point out LED flashlights had began to overtake even the "ultra bright" xenon CR123 lights (the SureFires and Scorpions of this world) - the discussion quickly turned to incandescent being better outdoors, and color rendition was not widely understood (eg: CRI being quoted) so I did a lot of finding out and discovered the Kruithof curve - see my reply to milkyspit in Post #*123* and subsequent discussion.
(there's a kind of index in the first post of that thread) 

You might want to check out the discussion in my other review -
NiteCore EZ AA-W (Warm tint) Comparison Review

The one thing one might take a note of is how well the blues are rendered in both the Neutral White (warm) LED charts - whereas the typical incandescent Scorpion does not do well at all.

The cool white LED does do well - but look at the reds, browns and yellows they are just not as "pleasing" as the Neutral White (warm) LEDs.

Most people who complain about LEDs are about the "washed out" colors - the rendition charts kind of helps us understand why - the Neutral White (warm) tints might not be as accurate when compared to daylight but the colors are punchier and stand out more - and in the dark we are looking for differences/contrast to distinguish/discern things, and as long as the light is not grossly inaccurate then which ever emphasizes the contrasts tend to be preferred, hence the preference by lots of people for incandescent over LED outdoors - it's obviously not due to rendition accuracy when compared to daylight - it's how distinct things looks and how "colorful".

Neutral White LED seem to me to be even better because there isn't the problem of yellow on white or being able to distinguish between navy and black......


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## StinkyButler (Aug 1, 2009)

*Re: Warm Tint - Quark AA2 Warm Comparison Review*

Brilliant review and great explanation. Thank you!!


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## UnknownVT (Aug 2, 2009)

*Re: Warm Tint - Quark AA2 Warm Comparison Review*

Note of self-correction - 
I have been calling these LEDs "Warm" tinted 
(my excuse: since they are "warm" when compared to regular cool white LEDs).

_BUT_ for clarity - 
Cree designs these XR-E Q3 5A LEDs "*neutral white*" - which are in the color temperature (CCT) range of 5,000 – 3,700 degK. 
(Q3 5A = 4,300 degK)
Cree does have separately *warm* *white* LEDs - that are in the color temperature range 3,700 – 2,600 degK.
For comparison Cree's cool whites are in the range 10,000 – 5,000 degK.

I am adding this to the opening post to avoid confusion.

Here's the Cree XP-E Binning & Labeling pdf.


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## hiker123 (Aug 2, 2009)

Nice review.
Will you be adding any outdoor shots between the Neutral and Cool Quarks?
Cheers


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## UnknownVT (Aug 2, 2009)

hiker123 said:


> Will you be adding any outdoor shots between the Neutral and Cool Quarks?



...but of course - thanks for reminding me -
however I had to wait for it to be dark -
it's dark now - so....









when it's dark any light is better than no light -
regular cool white in Cree XP-E is actually a lot better than any 5mm LED (which have blueish tendencies).

However in a typical outdoor scenario of foliage - one can see that the warmer tinted Neutral White seem so much more realistic/pleasant colors - it's not that one cannot see colors well in the cool white in comparison - it just tends to look less saturated - kind of washed out - confirming what people have been saying about incandescent vs. LEDs for years.

However this Neutral white is not as yellow as an incandescent and does not have the typical yellow on white or navy blue vs. black issue that incandescent have. 

Seems like a very good middle ground/compromise to me as a light for illuminating the dark......


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## HighLumens (Aug 3, 2009)

Thanks for these pics and for the review, very useful!


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## bhvm (Aug 3, 2009)

Excellent comparo!

Somone please Add a Warm white (3000~3500k) Power LED in here! Much appreciated.


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## clg0159 (Aug 3, 2009)

UnknownVT said:


> However in a typical outdoor scenario of foliage - one can see that the warmer tinted Neutral White seem so much more realistic/pleasant colors - it's not that one cannot see colors well in the cool white in comparison - it just tends to look less saturated - kind of washed out - confirming what people have been saying about incandescent vs. LEDs for years.
> 
> However this Neutral white is not as yellow as an incandescent and does not have the typical yellow on white or navy blue vs. black issue that incandescent have.
> 
> Seems like a very good middle ground/compromise to me as a light for illuminating the dark......


 
Well said!


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## hiker123 (Aug 4, 2009)

Thanks again for the outdoor pictures. This is a great thread on the tint comparisons.

Do you get to keep the light for a durability test? I'm sure sooner or later there will be one.
Cheers


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## UnknownVT (Aug 4, 2009)

Lower levels comparison

vs. regular Cool White Quark AA2 - both NiMH
going from lowest to higher levels -
































It may be hard to see but the lower the level the more saturated/yellower the tint - this applies also to the regular Cool white......

For some time I felt the Quark AA2 Neutral white seemed more yellow/saturated than the NiteCore EZ-AA W the only other "Warm"/Neutral White LED I had - and could not understand it when the comparison beamshot seemed to be the opposite to what I saw.

Then I realized I was doing most of my eyeball comparisons with both the lights at _LOW_ levels - where the NiteCore uses very fast PWM - so effectively there is _NO_ shift in tint - whereas the Quarks use current regulation - so at lower levels - there is lower drive current - hence a shift in tint toward yellow-green (just like for regular Cool whites).

Hopefully these comparison beamshots show -







the brightness levels are not the same but hopefully one can see that the Quarks now seems more saturated/yellow than in the Max level beamsots in the opening post. It maybe marginal/subtle in the beamshots - but the eye can definitely detect this....

So how can I show this shift toward yellow as the levels lower?

Here's a crude attempt to show this shift in tint - I used a NiteCore EX10 (Q5) regular Cool white as a comparison - and tried to approximate/match the brightness levels by eye - other than the minimum levels.

Again going from Lowest levels to higher levels -







the Quark AA2 Neutral white reaches a much lower levels on its min than the NiteCore EX10 (Q5) - easy to see even with the tint difference.












[













Still difficult to see/discern unless one is deliberately looking for it - in these beamshots notice how the brighter/higher the levels seem to be paler than the lower levels? 
In real-life I can quite easily see a shift to more yellow/staturated tint the lower the level on the Quark.


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## vali (Aug 4, 2009)

The first time I fired up my warm Quark I thought just the same: "OMG, it is really yellow".

In some threads, when ppl was talking about the 3Q 5A emitters, they usually said it was somewhat pink, but I dont see any pink in mine .


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## pipspeak (Aug 4, 2009)

Thanks for the review/explanations

COuple of questions -- in absolute lumens terms, roughtly how much less light does a Q3 put out compared to the Q5? I know it's probably not enough to notice but I'm just curious. 

Secondly, to what extent do you find the neutral/warm tint helps with perceived throw? Does the improved color rendition make it look like it's lighting up more in the distance, or less?


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## UnknownVT (Aug 4, 2009)

pipspeak said:


> COuple of questions -- in absolute lumens terms, roughtly how much less light does a Q3 put out compared to the Q5? I know it's probably not enough to notice but I'm just curious.
> 
> Secondly, to what extent do you find the neutral/warm tint helps with perceived throw? Does the improved color rendition make it look like it's lighting up more in the distance, or less?



Good questions -

I do not have any equipment to measure lumens output (normally $$10's of K) I do what everyone else does - eye-ball the lights side-by-side and I take side-by-side beamshots as the closest approximation to seeing things live.

Look at these beamshots with colors removed by desaturation 
(from the opening post) -







it would appear that the regular cool white is just a bit brighter - but I certainly couldn't tell just eyeballing the beams even when side-by-side - so in practice it probably would not make much practical difference in the difference in brightness - BUT the tint difference may be important.....

Which brings us to the next question - 

I feel I do see better under these Neutral white (warm) LEDs - the colors are, well, warmer and more "colorful" and they seem to me to have better contrast for distinguishing/discerning things - which is what we mainly want to do with a flashlight in the dark.

There is a good physiological reason as well as evolution/conditioning that human eyesight tends to see better with more amber/yellow bias at lower light levels. (see Kruithof curve and discussion in Post #*5*)

For normal eyesight there is also the "chromatic interval" where yellow is the wavelength that is focused on the retina, whereas red is focused behind, and blue in front.

But these neutral white (warm) LEDs do not suffer from a lack of blue in their overall spectrum - as there is not the usual yellow on white or navy blue to black difficulties found normally with incandescent lights.

Of course YMMV and personal preferences do come into the equation - for someone who can't stand yellow tint - these would probably be "horrible" - just like I prefer to lessen any hint of green, and even prefer not to have too much blue tint.


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## hiker123 (Aug 5, 2009)

Even more pictures! 

Good shots - I can clearly see the tint shift on the Neutral going from moon mode to high. You have shown it quite nicely.
Cheers

Edit: How do you feel about the tint shift in moon and low vs medium and high? Is it too yellow in the lower two modes for you? From the pictures (to me) medium and high look about what I was expecting. In moon and low it looks more saturated than expect.


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## UnknownVT (Aug 5, 2009)

hiker123 said:


> Even more pictures!
> Good shots - I can clearly see the tint shift on the Neutral going from moon mode to high. You have shown it quite nicely.
> Cheers
> Edit: How do you feel about the tint shift in moon and low vs medium and high? Is it too yellow in the lower two modes for you? From the pictures (to me) medium and high look about what I was expecting. In moon and low it looks more saturated than expect.



What a nice person  
this was just what I was about to talk on, thank you!

The shift in tint to more warm in a typical current regulated circuit could be an inadvertent advantage that someone can take into account in their design......

One has to refer to the Kruithof curve (please also see Post #*5* & #*17* ) to understand for most of us the lower the light level our eyes also shifts toward warmer and warmer tints - 
so this shift in LED tint as the level goes lower happens to coincide with the way we see! 

So it's then a design to pick an illumination level for the tint and then allow the shift toward warm tints fall where they may.

This would be my preference - YMMV - I would like to see 4,400 degK at the High level (which is level 4 on the Quarks about 70 lumens - *not* the Max level) - so if I was designing I would then choose a *4A* bin which is in the color temperature range of 4,500-4,750 degK - ie: one step up from the ideal - so that on Max the light would be a little more blue - which is fine as our eyes would prefer a more blue at higher light levels - on High (70 lumens) the shift may have dropped the color temperature to a slightly warmer tint might not be exactly 4,400 degK but between high and the medium the color temperature probably will be in the range of around 4,400 degK; the low to moon will then probably be lower than my "ideal" 4,400 degK which is again fine because at lower levels we see better with a warmer tint........

The current Neutral white LED used is a Q3 5A - which is in the range 4,000-4,300 degK - this would probably be the tint at Max - that means the lower levels would be correspondingly warmer - so the light is a bit warmer than ideal - 
however this is really just being nit-picky as the differences for the warm tints as I pointed out are really minor, compared to the difference in seeing with these Neutral white warm tints when compared a typical cool white - even then YMMV - I think it's just us flashaholics that would be so interested in such minor differences - 
like I said before in the dark _ANY_ light is better than no light......

But I now do like the warm tints


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## dudu84 (Aug 6, 2009)

I just received my Quark AA tactical neutral LED version today, first word came to my mind when opening the package was "Wow!" :twothumbs

Mine allows lockout as a part of the threads inside the tailcap is anodized, Is yours the same, UnknownVT?

Not sure if this is useful to anyone but the switch looks identical to Fenix's (spring and board are slightly different though), which happens to be the same as the forward clickies being sold on KD


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## UnknownVT (Aug 6, 2009)

dudu84 said:


> Mine allows lockout as a part of the threads inside the tailcap is anodized, Is yours the same, UnknownVT?



You have the latest version.

All my tactical Quarks are earlier and do not have the anodizing on the threads.

Perhaps you can please help to clarify -
is the anodizing on the inside of the tail cap only,
or is there anodizing on the corresponding threads on the body tube too?

Thanks,


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## HKJ (Aug 6, 2009)

UnknownVT said:


> You have the latest version.
> 
> All my tactical Quarks are earlier and no not have the anodizing on the threads.
> 
> ...



Only on the tailcap, it looks this way:


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## dudu84 (Aug 6, 2009)

HKJ said:


> Only on the tailcap, it looks this way:



Yep, that's what I have! Thx for the photo HKJ :wave:
I said "a part of the threads" because the threads behind the retaining ring are not anodized.


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## HighLumens (Aug 6, 2009)

This thread is becoming always more interesting!

Thanks for the Kruithof curve linklovecpf.


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## UnknownVT (Aug 6, 2009)

Standardized Stairway comparison -














To my eyes at first sight it seems that the Neutral White Quark AA2 may be brighter than the regular Cool white?

But when I remove the color/tint from the beamshots by deSaturation -







one can now see that the regular Cool white is brighter - 
although I can't explain why the hotspot on the Neutral white seems more intense.


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## UnknownVT (Aug 10, 2009)

UnknownVT said:


> although I can't explain why the hotspot on the Neutral white seems more intense.



From an off-line conversation - it was suggested that the hotspots from the stairway beamshots were not identically centered - this could make a difference to the perception of one being brighter than the other.

I took crops from the hotspot area from each of the stairs beamshots for comparison -









Because the tints were different enough - I then removed the color by desaturation, which may make it easier to compare -


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## Badbeams3 (Aug 10, 2009)

The hot spots look pretty much the same. One thing...the Fenix hot spot looks way brighter.


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## UnknownVT (Aug 10, 2009)

Badbeams3 said:


> The hot spots look pretty much the same. One thing...the Fenix hot spot looks way brighter.



That's the reason sometimes I just present the photos without much comment - everyone should be able to judge for themselves.

I thought the hotspot of the neutral white looked more intense - since to my eyes the chart looks more burnt out than on the cool white in the full stairway shots. 

Even the enlarged/cropped hotspot area seemed that way to me. 

However when I removed the tint/color by desaturation I can now see that there may still be a difference - but not enough to make any issue over.

The Fenix LD20 to my eyes looked brighter overall - 
it helps that its beam is narrower than the Quarks so the light is more concentrated in the first place. 
(FWIW - Fenix LD20 is rated at 180 lumens, and the Quark AA2 cool white at 170 lumens - the Neutral white (Q3 5A) ought to be less bright)


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## UnknownVT (Aug 10, 2009)

Human vision and the perception of "the color of white" -
please read this very informative article explaining our eyes' preference of tint at lower light levels - specifically in the exhibition of art paintings -

The Color of White

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/waac/wn/wn21/wn21-3/wn21-308.html

(_Western Association for Art Conservation Newsletter)_


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## Badbeams3 (Aug 10, 2009)

UnknownVT said:


> That's the reason sometimes I just present the photos without much comment - everyone should be able to judge for themselves.
> 
> I thought the hotspot of the neutral white looked more intense - since to my eyes the chart looks more burnt out than on the cool white in the full stairway shots.
> 
> ...



I see what you see...it does look like the neutral white is a tad brighter looking at the charts on the wall...don`t know what to think about that.


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## 4sevens (Aug 10, 2009)

UnknownVT said:


> From an off-line conversation - it was suggested that the hotspots from the stairway beamshots were not identically centered - this could make a difference to the perception of one being brighter than the other.


If you have an LCD screen, look at the two beam shots at an extreme angle and you will see that they are not centered. The outer corona is very defined and you can see "circles." It's hard to describe. If I wasn't in the airport I'd plug them into photoshop to do some magic to demonstrate what I mean.


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## Badbeams3 (Aug 10, 2009)

4sevens said:


> If you have an LCD screen, look at the two beam shots at an extreme angle and you will see that they are not centered. The outer corona is very defined and you can see "circles." It's hard to describe. If I wasn't in the airport I'd plug them into photoshop to do some magic to demonstrate what I mean.



Ok...got it, the Neutral white angle is diff...so the charts are more toward the center. But still...


BTW...called to order a neutral white head...no go...how soon can I order one?


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## Vox Clamatis in Deserto (Aug 10, 2009)

Are these new emitters neutral white or warm white? Cree defines neutral white as 3700K to 5000K and warm white as 2600K to 3700K.

I'd say my light is definitely warm white from the appearance.


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## UnknownVT (Aug 10, 2009)

Vox Clamatis in Deserto said:


> Are these new emitters neutral white or warm white? Cree defines neutral white as 3700K to 5000K and warm white as 2600K to 3700K.
> I'd say my light is definitely warm white from the appearance.



Thanks for that.

These are neutral white in fact they are Cree XP-E Q3 5A -

This is why I tried to clarify that in my edit of the opening post #*1*, the change in thread heading, and in post #*7*.

*EDIT to ADD* -

The reason why the beamshots seem "more yellow/warm" is because I use fixed daylight white balance on my digital camera to show deviation from "daylight" - and the beams are in direct side-by-side comparison with a cool-white beam so the difference is really emphasized.

However our eyes do not work the same way as a camera - they adapt to the lighting conditions (please see Kruithof curve and The Color of White for an explanation).

In real-life although one can see these as quite "yellow" especially when compared side-by-side with a standard cool-white LED - most of the time in normal use (therefore in isolation) although I am still aware that the beam is "yellow" - it looks quite "natural" to me - whereas using a standard cool-white LED seems to be quite grayish and the colors are not quite as contrasty as under the neutral white.

This holds true even going the other way of viewing with cool-white first and getting use to its colors - then turning on the neutral white - colors seem to be "warmer" more "natural" to me -
of course YMMV - and some people may not like a yellow tint and think these may be "horrible".

Personally I am liking the neutral white more and more.


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## benhar (Aug 11, 2009)

OK, so one thing I am taking from this is that I can't totally go by the pictures, it is a real-life application personal preference thing. Which causes obvious problems if I can only order one :sigh:

So, I'm going to ask this question and see if it helps... when it comes to light bulbs, I don't like the new fluorescent, and I don't like the standard incandescent with the clear or white glass. I like the incandescent with the blue tint (think they are called GE Reveal?). If you happen to have one of those bulbs, which of the two Quarks most closely matches that?


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## UnknownVT (Aug 11, 2009)

benhar said:


> when it comes to light bulbs, I don't like the new fluorescent, and I don't like the standard incandescent with the clear or white glass. I like the incandescent with the blue tint (think they are called GE Reveal?). If you happen to have one of those bulbs, which of the two Quarks most closely matches that?



GE makes two types of Reveal - one is halogen based the other is a true tungsten incandescent with blue tinted glass (links to GE web page on the products)

For reference the standard Soft-White and the Soft-White Compact Fluorescent 

From your description it sounds like the latter that you have/like?

Unfortunately GE do not seem to give the color temperature of those bulbs - but generally a incandescent bulbs are in the range of 2700–3300 K (see Wikipedia on Color temperature) - 
I would think -
GE Soft-White would probably be around the 2700-2800 degK mark? 
A typical halogen light can only reach about 3,200 degK
The blue tinted incandescent Reveal - my guess may be somewhere between the standard Soft-White and the Halogen? So 2,700-3,200 degK?

Either way these are much lower color temperatures than any of the 
Cree Neutral Whites (3,700-5,000 degK) 
they fall into 
Cree Warm Whites (2,700-3,500 degK) 
- please see the Cree XP-E Binning & Labeling pdf

However for a flashlight one may find that the warm whites are much too warm/yellow looking more like incandescent flashlights - eg: the Xenon bulb SureFire 6P, G2, or Streamlight Scorpion which are about 3,200 degK.

If you actually like those incandescent lights then aim for a Cree "Warm White" at around 3,200 degK -eg: Q2 bin 7A.

Otherwise I would say the in between Neutral White as in this Q3 5A is actually very well chosen - any cool-white looks blue in comparison as shown in the beamshots.....


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## benhar (Aug 12, 2009)

Yes, I have the latter.

That helps, I didn't realize that even with the blue tint it's still that much warmer than the neutral LED. Please understand this is my first time getting into the details of flashlight color temperature 

I'm thinking the Neutral will be a good fit. Thanks for the help!


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## kwkarth (Aug 12, 2009)

To my eyes, the famous and most, most, most excellent "Standardized Stairway" photos posted by Unknownvt very accurately depict what you'll see with the Neutral White Quark compared to other sources of illumination.

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3039991&postcount=25


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## UnknownVT (Aug 12, 2009)

kwkarth said:


> To my eyes, the famous and most, most, most excellent "Standardized Stairway" photos posted by Unknownvt very accurately depict what you'll see with the Neutral White Quark compared to other sources of illumination.
> https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3039991&postcount=25



Thank you very much for the kind words.

Not meaning to be contrary - but our eye/brain combination shift in the way they see.

To give a fairly common example - most of us see the light in our homes as "white" - and mostly those are incandescent bulbs or perhaps the compact fluorescent - once a photo is taken with fixed daylight white balance those are shown as quite yellow/red.

Now if we turn on a xenon bulb CR123 flashlight like the SureFire 6P, G2 - we tend to think those are "whiter" than the typical room lighting.....

Again a daylight white balanced photo shows how yellow/red those still are - and that was going from about 2,700degK to about 3,200degK (max).

Museums and art galleries have done extensive research to find the optimum lighting to exhibit/view paintings/images - which are very dependent on lighting/color temperature and accuracy of color rendition is paramount. As can be seen in the paper The Color of White published by Western Association for Art Conservation - and posted by Stanford University it appears that 3,700degK is the optimal color temperature for an illumination level of 20 foot-candles for critical viewing of art/paintings.
(please also see Kruithof curve)

Of course flashlights are different because the distance of illumination can vary depending on the situation and we can't always be illuminating at 20 foot-candles (excuse me deer - can you please stay still while I measure the distance and convert my flashlight lumens to candle-power and calculate if I am illuminating you at 20 foot-candles?) whereas an art gallery has fixed lighting at predetermined distances and angles - but nonetheless what they have found is very valuable to our understanding of what and why we see the way we do.

For me the neutral white LEDs seem a very good choice of color temperature encompassing the range of light levels likely to be found using a flashlight - they also contain enough blue part of the spectrum to eliminate the typical difficulty of incandescent lights in seeing blue and picking out yellow on white.

As a flashaholic I like these neutral white LEDs, and am very glad 4Sevens decided to make these on a special limited run.


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## NoFair (Aug 14, 2009)

Great review:twothumbs 

If I could change something on my Quark AA it would be getting a lower riding clip and HA Natural anodizing. 

The current clip is great with the 2AA body and 2cr123 body. 

Sverre

PS! A 17500 body would be awesome since I could then use 17500/14500/any other AA


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## benhar (Aug 17, 2009)

Well, my Neutral White Quark AA2 Tactical came in, and I have to agree that the color of the beam is just about perfect. Side by side with my Scorpion, it didn't look blue at all, but at the same time made the Scorpion look a little yellow. At the risk of sounding redundant, the Quark is the closest to plain white, and very pleasant to use.


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## kevinbh (Jul 31, 2012)

Looks like the Neutral would be better for my hunting use, but will a green lens negate the Cool vs. Neutral difference? Thanks for the info!


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## UnknownVT (Aug 7, 2012)

kevinbh said:


> Looks like the Neutral would be better for my hunting use, but will a green lens negate the Cool vs. Neutral difference? Thanks for the info!



Sorry for the lateness of reply.

Although photos give a good idea of how a light might look compared to daylight - 
our eyes sometimes behave very differently.

You really should compare for yourself - 
and it does not matter if there is personal bias -
after all it is you that's doing the looking.

I personally prefer neutral white even outdoors - 
but there are very good reasons why a warm white of between 2700-3200K works well.

Cool white despite being much closer to the "ideal" daylight - 
just does not seem to work well in the dark outdoors - 
as many others will attest.

However placing a green filter over the light probably negates any perceived advantage.

But again you should see for yourself.


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