FYI !!!!!
Good price !!!
And someone mentioned the area behind the headlight bucket would need to be cut to allow the back of these bulbs to sit in place.That's for the 5.75". For our 7" application they are $200. Sold separately so it's $400.
The Holley RetroBrights look like a promising new product. I was asked for some input during their development—don't know whether or how well my advice was heeded. I expect to have samples in hand soon to scrutinise and evaluate. First impressions based on early-prototype test data: potentially very good low beam performance. High beam performance is more of an open question; probably not lousy, but maybe not excellent. I have some other questions and concerns that will be answered, one way or another, once I've got hands and eyeballs on 'em.
Notice it wasn't on my list of recommendations.
…if you want to piss away major money on headlite-shaped trinkets from the People's Republic of Ha Ha Very Funny, yes. If you want legitimate headlamps, no.Another option is Dapper Lighting
the reviews are great
The compare pics show a pretty drastic difference
…if you want to piss away major money on headlite-shaped trinkets from the People's Republic of Ha Ha Very Funny, yes. If you want legitimate headlamps, no.
This is what I mean when I say there's a mountain of garbage on the market. Context clues help winnow it down; legitimate suppliers usually don't do that Chinese thing of applying random-azz words grabbed out the English dictionary to themselves (such as "Dapper").
Oh, I'm sure they are. Problem is, what we feel like we're seeing isn't what we're actually seeing. The human visual system is a lousy judge of how well it's doing. "I know what I can see!" seems reasonable, but it doesn't square up with reality because we humans are just not well equipped to accurately evaluate how well or poorly we can see (or how well a headlamp works). Our subjective impressions tend to be very far out of line with objective, real measurements of how well we can (or can't) see. The primary factor that drives subjective ratings of headlamps is foreground light, that is light on the road surface close to the vehicle…which is almost irrelevant; it barely even makes it onto the _bottom_ of the list of factors that determine a headlamp's actual safety performance. A moderate amount of foreground light is necessary so we can use our peripheral vision to keep track of the lane lines and keep our focus up the road where it should be, but too much foreground light works against us: it draws our gaze downward even if we consciously try to keep looking far ahead, and the bright pool of light causes our pupils to constrict, which destroys our distance vision. All of this while creating the feeling that we've got "good" lights. It's not because we're lying to ourselves or fooling ourselves or anything like that, it's because our visual systems just don't work the way it feels like they work.
The upshot of this is that most internet "reviews" of a headlamp are useless at best, and that would still be the case even if we ignore the bogus criteria people often use when "reviewing" headlamps: sharp cutoff on low beam! (also very low on the list of factors that determine a headlamp's actual safety performance, but it looks nifty on the garage wall), "H4" (there are at least as many bad H4 headlamps as good ones), "E-code" (irrelevant; both the US and the UN/"E-code" headlamp standards have lots of room for good and bad headlamps) "High color temperature" (irrelevant at best)…and so on.
Photographs are useless here, unless the purpose is to make a cash register ring. They're misleading even if the photographer has the best of intent. That's because photographic imaging systems (pixels or film) work in a fundamentally different way than human eyes, and have a much narrower dynamic range. Even a photographer who tries very hard to keep all the camera settings identical when photographing different beams on a road or up against a wall cannot present more than broadly general information about the beams, and then only by comparison (a sharper cutoff vs. a fuzzier one, for example, or a wider beam vs. a narrower one).
Fortunately there are enough good, legitimate LED headlamps to fit our cars that we don't have to piss away major money on pretend-headlites.
I'm not Dan but this is snipped from what he posted on Monday.Ok, what are the good, legitimate LED headlamp brands then? That don't look super weird like Truck-Lites, those are ugly for a classic car...
Ok, what are the good, legitimate LED headlamp brands then?
Not saying I still want them but from watching the demo videos it looks like an American company,
the About Us page says they custom-assemble every headlight in the USA...
See my earlier post in this thread with names and links. Don't like how they look? OK, that's fair enough, but keep in mind headlamps are life-safety equipment first, fashion accessories second.
Sure, it's an American company…importing Chinese trinkets by the FCL and slapping on that "Dapper" name.
Uh-huh. And the AlphaRex people say the same thing. It's a simple yet powerful marketing technique known as lying.
Might be able to do a little better than that in cost.Well dang, guess I won't be upgrading my headlights anytime soon since I hardly drive my Duster at night any more and I'm not eager to dump $400 on headlights or redo the undersized old factory wiring. I'll keep those in mind though... J.W., Truck-Lites, Peterson, Hella, Koibo.
Might be able to do a little better than that in cost.
The Hella 'Vision plus' (002 395 301) lamps are about $50 each. $100
The H4/HB2 bulbs are included but not considered particularly good, so add another 30 for a pair. (see Dan's post here for specific bulbs)
IIRC Crackedback's relay harness or a Dan Stern's kits are in the 100- 150 range. If you do it all from scratch less, but more time and work.
Total will be $ 250-300.
So that's not a big reduction in cost, but something. Its a shame there is nothing decent in sealed beam market. But we see this in lots of the replacement parts - not just lights.
Maybe if you are motivated, just do a relay harness. That will help make the most of whatever lamp you have up front, and keep that load off the main feeds.
Be careful about the 'vision plus' 7" lamps. I just looked at Summit and saw they listed several under that name that do not have the aiming tits, and going to Hella's website confirms they are a different lamp.
Now I'll be watching out for Edelbrock to slap their sticker on these headlights.