There are a number of LED headlight "bulbs" that look similar to each other. Has anyone tried yet? $59 US and free shipping. It has the rows of LEDs (4 leds for each roe) situated to imitate the placement of halogen filaments, like the Philips x-treme ultinons, the http://jdmastar.com/product/313/8TH-Gen-H4-9003-LED-Headlight-Conversion-Kits-Set-of-2.html H4 lamps, and the https://gtrlighting.com/gtr-lighting-ultra-series-led-headlight-bulbs-h4-9003-3rd-generation/ lamps (which has only 3 leds per "filament") - and which are all rather similar looking, and all rather more expensive. All have heatsink for passive cooling. I saw a LED lamp with similar filament simulation on ebay that was even cheaper. I can't find a web site for a manufacturing company named RCP, just a retailer (in China?) who sells on Amazon, named MyRCP. I'm wondering if the RCP lamps are identical to one of the other lamps, and simply re-labeled. Yes the specs are slightly different. They claim higher power consumption (40 watts) and higher light output (4500 lumens high, 4500 lumens low, as compared to 3700 and 3500 combined for the GTR and for the JDM Aster). But very often such specs are rather unreliable. I think they were all claiming 6500 Kelvin color temp.

Has anyone tried the RCP bulbs yet? Seen any well-articulated, useful reviews?

 

Those do look interesting with regards to the chip placement. If you run across any pics of the beam pattern and cutoff, please post them!

 

sneffy, I am now finding out that there seem to be quite a number of LED bulbs with LED placement that mimics halogen filament placement. Prices as low as $30 a pair. Some with 3 LEDs per filament, some with 4, some with fans, some without. Often look identical but have different names. Specs as to lumens are confusing. Some marketers say 8000 lumens, and then you find out each bulb is 4000 lumens, and the high beam is 2000, and the low beam 2000. OEM halogen is low beam about 950, high about 1500. So 2000 isn't really an awful lot higher. And if the beam pattern is more scattered, then the useful lux may be the same, or less. It is really hard to be a good consumer. But then, at $30 a pop, seems hard to go wrong... hardly any more than a pair of halogens.

On the RCP page, the 4th image down is a (supposed) pic of high beam and low beam. But no comparison. This can be very misleading. And many so-called comparisons - they don't state that the same shutter speed and same aperture was used, and the night was the same (same phase of moon, same amount of cloud cover). Unless this is the case, comparisons are useless. So many "videographers" who are are not professional reviewers - you ask them if they photographed at the same shutter speed and aperture, and they say "what's that?" Or they say no of course not my camera is automatic I don't need to set shutter speed and aperture.

And so many "reviewers" talk about how nice their headlights look. Being conspicuous consumers is what's important to them, not seeing better. Those who talk about how well the road is lit, talk about cut-off lines, glare, scatter, and hot spot. No-one seems to talk about whether you can actually see better, or if you can see that rabbit on the side of the road, or that large male deer, intently focused on the female on the other side of the road, who's about to dart across the road like a maniac, without any warning, better.

 

I think, with no real standards for how people describe replacement headlights, and no standards for what kind of cameras and how to use them, the most useful photos that could be posted would be with one side of the car using a stock bulb, and one side with the replacement. Even if the camera settings are wildly different, it would at least give a reference against what everyone can see on their own unmodified car.

Of course, the people selling the bulbs can't do this for every car, and wouldn't want to if their product didn't perform as advertised. Sort of leaves it to us on the forum, but I doubt too many of us have the money to throw at multiple sets of LEDs, or we'd just go the projector refit route at probably over $1k.

 

Yes, if you have the oem headlight on one side and the replacement on the other, and photograph them, or video them, you see see a useful comparison, even if the camera selected its shutter speed and aperture automatically – especially in regard to how much light the headlights throw to the side of the road - provided you have the same things on the left side of the car as you have on the right. Unfortunately, people that make this kinds of photos often have an expanse of road on the left, and a shoulder with brush and trees on the right. Yes sometimes they just have a wall in front of the car. But this doesn't show how the headlights light up the road, and objects in the road.

It would be nice if some manufacturer's association developed voluntary standards for how to describe headlamps, and if some publisher did some real scientific testing of a bunch of different lamps. Yes, we do have the problem of different reflector and projector designs in different vehicles, and that the same LED lamp may be focused on the road differently in different ones.