Quote:
Originally Posted by lastlight
Halides will get you going cheaply enough (startup) and by the time you're ready for your first bulb-swap there will be a bunch of new and better fixtures not to mention better diodes (in them or for DIY). You want to get the thing running soon so I like your thinking.
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yah, that's honestly what I've been thinking, especially with the kinds of bulbs Cree has been announcing the last couple of months. It would be like 5 grand to do my tank with all Radions, which is so hard to swallow when there's a good chance they'll be obsolete in a year. I fully believe LEDs are the future, but if I'm going to sink 5 Gs on anything, I want it to be a 100% fully proven technology that does every thing I want, and whose limitations and considerations are 100% known. I think Ecotech really stepped up the game in terms of what people are going to expect from now on. Full spectrum LED fixtures is the way of the future and while I think Ecotech did a great job on their first attempt, I don't think they're completely 'there' just yet1 (neither do they, clearly, or they wouldn't have built in an extra un-utilized channel to the radion). Once all the other major players work through what was already in their R&D cycles, I think we're going to start seeing a whole suite of really impressive and compelling fixtures out there. It might even be a matter of simply waiting for Ecotech to release their next round of light pucks that fully utilizes what the hardware is capable of, but if that's the case, I'm certainly not interested in paying full base price plus what I'm sure will be a hefty 'upgrade', times 6, later.
Moral of the story, if I'm going to spend 5 thousand bucks on LED light fixtures, spending it after MACNA 2012 is probably going to get me a heck of a lot more for my money.