So what's the brightest halogen bulb we cam put in our trucks. I don't want hid and I don't want blue Tony. I want bright white light. I had silverstars in my jeep and they were pretty good but is there anything brighter?

 

Sylvania... i'm thinking either Xtravision or the newer silverstars... not the original design. I forgot what the new ones are called. Is it Silverstar 2 or Ultra???

EDIT: I need to clarify why... The Silverstar original bulbs are less effective than the Xtravisions, despite being more expensive, because they have a bluer colored tint. The human eye has the most clarity and perceptiveness with yellow tones therefore any light that beams forward a blue color, then reflects back only the bluer tones. Although this appears brighter you are actually seeing less. Additionally, the tinted bulbs have a reduced lumens output. So even when measured with a lightmeter you'll find that they produce less light. That's why they redesigned the Silverstar to be more like the Xtravision.

 

i just put in a pair of silverstars last weekend. they are the brightest ones they carry for the f150 (they have 5 levels with 1 weakest and 5 brightest) and these were 4 on the rating scale on back. they give a nice hyperwhite bright look but arent soo bright that oncoming traffic flash you. there perfect in my opinion. $44 bucks at Autozone. hope this helps.

 

Exact proof of my prior post... they "give a nice hyperwhite bright look" yet they aren't actually bright. Use a real lightmeter and find out how dismal the lumen output is. It's 10-20% less than comparable untinted bulbs (and by comparable I mean same chamber design with the same resistance and wattage) that have no tinting to make them appear any brighter. I'm not saying people don't like the Silverstars. They do give you a false sense of security because you "feel" better about the light up front but the fact of the matter is there is a reason you don't see blue tinted shooting glasses...

 

Bulb / Lowbeam Lumen Output / Highbeam Lumen output
(Outputs are quoted in low-expected-high ranges. All bulbs can vary up/down by 15% hence the ranges)

Halogen / 850-1000-1150 / 1150-1350-1550 / 3100
CoolBlue / 850-1000-1150 / 1150-1350-1550 / 3500
XtraVision / 850-1000-1150 / 1150-1350-1550 / 3200
SilverStar / 850-1000-1150 / 1150-1350-1550 / 4000
SS Ultra / 850-1000-1150 / 1150-1350-1550 / 4100

What's most interesting is all of these bulbs use the exact same casings, bulbs, tungsten-halogen gas charges, and even filaments... the only difference is in the coating. Now a coating can vary two things. 1) Light output color (or spectrum). In this manner it is acting as a filter to reduce light output in less visible spectrums and permiss it in the more visible spectrums. The reason for this has everything to do with 2) how much light is reflected internally. This light causes the same filament to glow physically hotter and therefore produce more light. Now, although the tint changes the color output it also reduces it... so the filament has to burn hotter to maintain the same lumen output as the competing bulbs which is why the more tinted a bulb, the shorter the lifespan it has because that same C8 filament cannot burn hotter without having a shorter lifespan. Over time the hotter temperature causes it to not retain as much tungsten (which slowly evaporates) and eventually the filament will break.

Below is a graph of the human eye efficiency spectrum. This is a breakdown by the rods and the 3 cone types of how we see light. Notice how the rods, and the green/red cones both have a broad spectrum but the violet cones have a very narrow spectrum of light. Because we are accustomed to natural daylight we percieve that a high amount of light on the violet spectrum is brighter because it has a higher nerve response in the brain than is expected, therefore our brain interprets this as a significantly brighter light source when in reality the number of lumens required to produce this sensation is lower than would be needed in the expected range.

Now here's where it gets tricky... stay with me here. The light seen by the SilverStar and SS Ultras is closer to the blue tones... it's actually just left of the center of the rods. This part of the color spectrum is getting 95% nerve response on the rods, and about 65% on green, and a dismal 30% on red and violet. This is a total nerve reading of 220%. The Xtravisions are centered just off the right of the green cone which is about 95% green, 80% red, 60% on the rods, and nothing on violet. This is a total of 235% which is 7% more. What's not being considered is how your brain is able to process imagery in the visual cortex much faster than the rest of your brain is able to interpret what that imagery is... As you are moving in a car if you approach an object quickly your visual cortex can determine that you are about to collide with that object (it's a natural reflex) and you will be able to react and hit the brakes much faster than if you were to think through what was happened. The importance of this nerve response is that since we have spent the last couple of millions of years adapting our vision to the pure daylight spectrum we have (and this can be seen by looking at the overall centering of rods/cones in that graph) the most perceptiveness both physically and mentally over anything in the yellow/green spectrum, ont the blue/green. This means that you are reducing your reflexes as well as your physically perceivable light by installing Silverstars and SS Ultras. The use of regular halogen and Xtravisions is the safest two ideas as you have the most perceivable/usable light spectrum being projected as well as the best ability for your visual cortex to interpret anything and react before you could think it through.

I'm not sure about you, but when it comes to deer on a night road I'd much rather let my visual cortex have enough light in that yellow/green spectrum so that I can react naturally instead of having to think about braking because I'm seeing a deer. The way I see it is that unless you are installing a lighting system that adds significant projection distance (different bulb or filament design which simply isn't present in the silverstar designs), or a system that adds significant lumen output (HIDs) then it's just not worth doing because it's not actually helpful.

The reason an HID system is beneficial is because a xenon arc is a fairly liner spectrum response. Although it has a very high peak on the kelvin temp you buy (say 5000K), it actually projects a very high amount of light in all of the other colors as well. This is why the 6000K HID are used so much. Not only do they actually project more of the usable light than a halogen, but they also have enough peak light in the 6000K temperature to make us think that they are brighter... so they are physically brighter and we perceive them as brighter. A 4300K HID is better than a 6000K in terms of light output that we can use, however a 6000K HID is still better than any halogen. If my memory is correct the most usable HID color is around 3000-3200 as it peaks right now the center of our vision efficiency, but it also has a broader output curve than the higher peaking lights.