Room Lighting

[Jean Genie]

I am installing new lighting in a dedicated studio/listening room and would
appreciate opinions from all you learned lounge listeners

[geebo]

The dimmable LED lights with color adjustment and wireless control. I have a couple LIFX bulbs that work very nice.

[mshump]

LED, cheapest electric price.

Mark

[kybourbon]

Lighting for what? The ceiling? Under the theater chairs? For your AV rack? Disco?

[esquire]

LED's have color temp differences. I like 3000K and find it comforting.

[Loop 7]

I despise overhead lighting, recessed or other types, so I just have lamps and sconces. Bulbs are either CFL or LED.

[jhob]

I'm a huge fan of dimmer switches, so I can make change the brightness to my desired lighting level, which changes frequently depending on my mood.

[leonski]

Dimable LED would appear to be the most energy efficient. I just changed a pair of 75watt 'conventional' bulbs to a pair of LED which issue as much or more light AND use only 20% of the power. This is in an
outside fixture which is difficult to get to.

Regular bulbs are getting harder to find in some shapes, though I think that you will be able to find them for quite some time to come. some of the 'specialty' stuff may go first?

Go to a lighting store and LOOK. Loop doesnt' like overhead, recessed or some others. OK, so how about YOU?

And be aware of what is called 'color tempreture'. They give them 'names' like Cool White or Daylight or Warm. Look at the temp. In my Kitchen with 4x4' tubes? I run 2 cool white and 2 warm tubes which provide a very nice, bright light of a color that seems pretty natural. Daylight is a very white, almost bluish light. A 2700k bulb of whatever type will be a very 'warm' light, more yellow /

[KeithL]

What confuses many people is that HIGHER color temperatures are MORE WHITE or even BLUE.....
And LOWER color temperatures are more YELLOW or ORANGE.
2700k is about equivalent to an old-style 60 watt soft-white incandescent bulb.
5600k is more like a daylight fluorescent bulb (it's also the color that "true white" is calibrated to on most monitors).
(Orange may look warmer than blue to we humans, but, as temperature rises, the light emitted by hot objects goes from red, to orange, to yellow, to white, to blue-white.)

One other thing worthy of note is that most "white" LED bulbs actually have an ultraviolet light source LED which then causes a phosphor to fluoresce white (like a fluorescent bulb).
In many early bulbs, the light was converted inconsistently by the phosphor, which resulted in strange bluish fringes, especially at the edge of the beam, and odd fluorescence effects, with many white LED bulbs.
Although you still see this on some cheap bulbs, and in some flashlights, the newer LED bulbs have overcome this problem almost entirely.

Also note that the phosphor in most modern bulbs is yellow when unlit - even the ones that produce a pure white light when powered on.
(So don't try to figure out what color the bulb is by looking at the phosphor when it's off.)

Sept 18, 2017 13:17:22 GMT -5 leonski said:

Dimable LED would appear to be the most energy efficient. I just changed a pair of 75watt 'conventional' bulbs to a pair of LED which issue as much or more light AND use only 20% of the power. This is in an
outside fixture which is difficult to get to.

Regular bulbs are getting harder to find in some shapes, though I think that you will be able to find them for quite some time to come. some of the 'specialty' stuff may go first?

Go to a lighting store and LOOK. Loop doesnt' like overhead, recessed or some others. OK, so how about YOU?

And be aware of what is called 'color tempreture'. They give them 'names' like Cool White or Daylight or Warm. Look at the temp. In my Kitchen with 4x4' tubes? I run 2 cool white and 2 warm tubes which provide a very nice, bright light of a color that seems pretty natural. Daylight is a very white, almost bluish light. A 2700k bulb of whatever type will be a very 'warm' light, more yellow /

[pknaz]

I hate overhead lighting, I'm going with non-direct diffused light in my room.

[leonski]

Based on looking at a LOT of peoples photography, I'd say that IN GENERAL their are FEW actually calibrated monitors.
I have a spyder for my monitor and after adjusting a photograph, that is pretty much what I'll see in the final Print.

Your TV is another can of worms, and if you really care, (most don't) get an ISF guy out to do the Calibration.
Black level counts as does how much of the 'color space' your set recovers.

In the old days of FILM cameras, you'd have a Tungsten film which produced correct color indoors using regular bulbs.
You'd have a daylight film which was obvioussly for outdoors.
But use the OUTside film indoors? It'd go way-yellow and if you used the indoor stuff outside, you get horrible blueish images.
Filters could be installed to correct if you knew in advance.

Today? Most digital cameras 'auto correct' and do a reasonable job, except in 'mixed' lighting. Hollywood has the same problem when
filmiing in mixed light. They'll cover widows with color gels to correct outside light to match interior light. You NEVER notice when this is done.

[KeithL]

I haven't done much photography lately.... but I used to.... and I still calibrate my monitors out of habit.
(I'd still much rather see what something is supposed to look like than not see what it's supposed to look like.)

It's always annoyed me that TV manufacturers don't include the calibration app in their TV (then you could just plug in your calibrator, stick it on the screen, and hit the "cal" button).
Most smart TVs these days already have a computer, and lots of apps, so it wouldn't take much extra effort to include the calibration app... they could even sell the hardware extra .
(But, then, I'll admit to being one of the ones who's not all that fussy about the colors on my TV.)

Sept 18, 2017 14:01:32 GMT -5 leonski said:

Based on looking at a LOT of peoples photography, I'd say that IN GENERAL their are FEW actually calibrated monitors.
I have a spyder for my monitor and after adjusting a photograph, that is pretty much what I'll see in the final Print.

Your TV is another can of worms, and if you really care, (most don't) get an ISF guy out to do the Calibration.
Black level counts as does how much of the 'color space' your set recovers.

In the old days of FILM cameras, you'd have a Tungsten film which produced correct color indoors using regular bulbs.
You'd have a daylight film which was obvioussly for outdoors.
But use the OUTside film indoors? It'd go way-yellow and if you used the indoor stuff outside, you get horrible blueish images.
Filters could be installed to correct if you knew in advance.

Today? Most digital cameras 'auto correct' and do a reasonable job, except in 'mixed' lighting. Hollywood has the same problem when
filmiing in mixed light. They'll cover widows with color gels to correct outside light to match interior light. You NEVER notice when this is done.

[wilburthegoose]

I have halogen ceiling fixtures - they've been up there for 20 years now and are nicely dimmable.

[leonski]

Sept 18, 2017 14:17:53 GMT -5 KeithL said:

I haven't done much photography lately.... but I used to.... and I still calibrate my monitors out of habit.
(I'd still much rather see what something is supposed to look like than not see what it's supposed to look like.)

It's always annoyed me that TV manufacturers don't include the calibration app in their TV (then you could just plug in your calibrator, stick it on the screen, and hit the "cal" button).
Most smart TVs these days already have a computer, and lots of apps, so it wouldn't take much extra effort to include the calibration app... they could even sell the hardware extra .
(But, then, I'll admit to being one of the ones who's not all that fussy about the colors on my TV.)

Sept 18, 2017 14:01:32 GMT -5 leonski said:

Based on looking at a LOT of peoples photography, I'd say that IN GENERAL their are FEW actually calibrated monitors.
I have a spyder for my monitor and after adjusting a photograph, that is pretty much what I'll see in the final Print.

Your TV is another can of worms, and if you really care, (most don't) get an ISF guy out to do the Calibration.
Black level counts as does how much of the 'color space' your set recovers.

In the old days of FILM cameras, you'd have a Tungsten film which produced correct color indoors using regular bulbs.
You'd have a daylight film which was obvioussly for outdoors.
But use the OUTside film indoors? It'd go way-yellow and if you used the indoor stuff outside, you get horrible blueish images.
Filters could be installed to correct if you knew in advance.

Today? Most digital cameras 'auto correct' and do a reasonable job, except in 'mixed' lighting. Hollywood has the same problem when
filmiing in mixed light. They'll cover widows with color gels to correct outside light to match interior light. You NEVER notice when this is done.

The last time I saw data, about 1/2 the TVs sold in the USA were not calibrated or adjusted by the end user.    I wish I could find that again, so I could link it. 
I find that pretty nutty, too.  

The idea of 'objective reality' in a photo is pretty IFFY, IMO.      I can adjust a photo, in many subtle ways which ALL look equally 'real' and you'd have trouble deciding 
what the closest was to representing the scene or object I photographed in the FIRST place.  

I've done Art Photography and the way to get it accurate to the original piece is to include a color bar chart and a grey scale in the image, to be cropped out later.  
You don't want to mess with Rembrant or change the original artists intent, even by accident.

And also, just my opinion, Digital is even or at least potentially MORE work than film.  When I want 'The Print' from a set I just shot, it can take quite some effort to simply optimize
a given exposure.    I shoot RAW and JPG at the same time, so I have the largest file with the most color information from which to start.    Working thru 600 shots of a wedding can be a life-changing experience.    That's basically a shot a minute for 10 hours.  

I think the ISF would pitch a fit if they were put out of business by an included app and Spyder.

imagingscience.com

[Priapulus]

LED lamps. Warm in TV room and bedrooms (dimable); daylight in workshop and kitchen.
/b

[gus4emo]

Love low red, whatever the type...

[jlafrenz]

Every bulb in my house is an LED so I voted for that. If I'm relaxing listening to 2 channel, my preference is lights off. I enjoyed the subtle glow of tubes when I had my 2 channel room set up.

[hemster]

Believe it or not, I prefer candlelight for my music listening. Of course with hurricane Irma, I had candles but no power so so music!

I may replace conventional candles with LED ones - some even flicker and look like the real thing, without the risk of burning the place down if I fall asleep/pass out in a drunken stupor. Well, that hasn't happened in a long while... it's been at least 10 days!

[petew]

I've got a mix of LED and incandescent. I like incandescent for the wall washers in my listening space because they dim smoothly and I prefer the color change of an incandescent bulb as the current drops. Everything else is getting replaced with LED dimmable bulbs as the old lamps crap out.

I have 100' of incandescent rope light that I want to replace with RGBW LEDs but holding off to finish some other projects first. I need to figure out the best way to handle dimming and color change with iRule. Possibly a DMX controller?

I'm getting rid of fluorescent as quickly as possible. As the electronic ballasts crap out in my shop I'm converting the fixtures to LED tubes. All the curly CFL lamps are already history.

[RichGuy]

Every light in my home is LED and every light is dimmable and can be controlled by my HT remote, my phone, my computer,  various controllers and various keypads in my home.

They also have a variety of scheduled times they automatically come ON or go OFF. One of my favorites is my fake sunrise on work days my bedroom gradually lights as though the sun was coming up outside so it seems to be light out when I wake up for work even though it may be pitch black outside, several other lights light up as well so it seems the sun is up for my morning.

I use Insteon for lighting and home automation. www.smarthome.com/insteon.html