The Eagles look like a good place to stop my search for now. I just need to decide if I want to go with the chrome ones to brighten it a bit or go for the murdered-out look and keep the interior black.
It's not just how bright they are. It's the colour, hot spot, cutoff, and projection image. A stock light may not seem as bright compared to some ok Chineseium Amazon stuff but the light does go further and gives you a better image brightness is actually a bad thing. You want lux. Lumination over distance. Not lumens.
Any product advertising lumens and the terms cree led is a scam POS waste of $. There are some great videos on yt on this. Here is one of my favorites that explains it well
It's not just how bright they are. It's the colour, hot spot, cutoff, and projection image. A stock light may not seem as bright compared to some ok Chineseium Amazon stuff but the light does go further and gives you a better image brightness is actually a bad thing. You want lux. Lumination over distance. Not lumens.
Any product advertising lumens and the terms cree led is a scam POS waste of $. There are some great videos on yt on this. Here is one of my favorites that explains it well
there are a ton of videos out there explaining this stuff. The take away here is that the right colour, with the right beam pattern can outperform a light that is 2x the brightness that has sub par colour and pattern. The other MAIN thing is that your eyes do adjust and its important to get as much of the right colour light out as far as you can at the lowest brightness so your eyes do not dilate and make it more difficult to see the darker areas. the stock headlight is not far off from being good, a bright flashing POS may look night at first but after riding with them you will understand why they suck. There is a reason there is a price gap for good stuff and cheep junk. If you are the person who rides with no gear, 20k mil changes when you remember, brain bucket and sandles then by all means go spend $50 on some junk. otherwise pay up for some good stuff knowing WHY its good and why it can save your ass from eating road
there are a ton of videos out there explaining this stuff. The take away here is that the right colour, with the right beam pattern can outperform a light that is 2x the brightness that has sub par colour and pattern. The other MAIN thing is that your eyes do adjust and its important to get as much of the right colour light out as far as you can at the lowest brightness so your eyes do not dilate and make it more difficult to see the darker areas. the stock headlight is not far off from being good, a bright flashing POS may look night at first but after riding with them you will understand why they suck. There is a reason there is a price gap for good stuff and cheep junk. If you are the person who rides with no gear, 20k mil changes when you remember, brain bucket and sandles then by all means go spend $50 on some junk. otherwise pay up for some good stuff knowing WHY its good and why it can save your ass from eating road
I absolutely agree with many of your points. I am a big fan of light quality over quantity but there still has to be enough quantity. At the same time, I'll err on the side of more brightness than not enough. I hate to say it my eyes are older now and once was exceptional eyesight is maybe just good now.
What might be the right amount on a concrete road might not be enough for bitumen or blacktop. Throw in some light-absorbing/scattering material (rain. snow, sleet, dust, mud, etc.), and I definitely want lights that will have sufficient output. Maybe in a perfect world (or with adaptive headlights) the theoretical and practical will intersect more easily. At least it much easier to swap out lights on my R3 than on my Tesla where I had to swap out the entire car to get the headlights I wanted. Tesla made it impossible to retrofit the lights they upgraded for my model car 1 week after mine was built.
Thanks, I had actually been looking at these. They are cheap enough to try and if they are good enough, no need to spend more money. I've seen a fair amount of complaints about the JW's not having a bright enough low beam and that the adaptive function can be a little slow to adapt. Quite a few comments about the light quality is good but the output could be better.
I could always buy 1 of each and split the difference.
NOT SO!
The Adaptive 2 adjusts in both low and high beam and works very well.
The OEM lights on a Rocket are criminal, IMHO and should be the FIRST mod done by an owner.
To date I have never light meter tested any aftermarket motorcycle headlight as good as the JW Speaker Adaptive 2.
If I don't forget, I shall bring my meter with me to Harrison, AR June 23, 24, 25 if anyone wants to compare.
My Adaptive 2s reveal an object to the human eye threshold (3.2 lux) up to 300 feet ahead with no ambient light.
edit:
The color, illumination intensity, and beam pattern are not mutually exclusive and cannot be changed. They work together, so the final product is the illumination value and beam pattern at 3.2 lux. A good quality light will produce at better distances and allow greater perception response to an emergency in your path.
Road surface type has more to do with glare (especially when wet) from the lights of oncoming vehicles than it does for forward visibility.
I know of others that have the eagles and they are bright and they like them and have held up atleast a couple years in each instance. @CrzystghndKC rocks em