Part of it depends on where you live.
If you're in California, you won't be able to put a recessed light in your kitchen or bathroom which can be retrofitted later.
The $130.00 price is kind of high. You can definitely find it for less online.
The only extra cost is the can itself. But any standard 5" or 6" can will work. So those won't cost more than $20.00.

As you've obviously read my earlier posts (thanks!) I won't get on my soapbox as to how overrated CFL's are. But taking in account the energy savings and also the lack of bulb changes, the LR6 is right in there with any other option. While giving you what the others don't- dimming for standard CFL's and high efficiency for incandescent... to name just two.

At any rate. Call around. I'm sure you'll find some places which will sell the LR6 for a lower price.

Thanks for the quick reply, lightguy! We're not in CA, so T24 doesn't apply. About the best price online that I could find is $100. I guess that does not include the housing or can, which adds another $20 per your estimation. Is the bulb included in these prices for the LR6?
Unfortunately, I feel like we are just a little too early to the dance on this technology. I see current technology in residential LED lighting at about the same stage as mobile phones when they first appeared. Remember the "car phones" of the 1980's?

We're in Florida so we do have different considerations but from what I hear the LED's aren't perfected. We just talked with a lighting designer yesterday and he said definitely wait and retrofit.

You've definitely got a point about the overall cost. $100.00 or so per fixture is a lot- no matter what. So that's just a matter of budget. 3 grand is 3 grand.

I don't necessarily agree on other issues for waiting. I have the LR6 mounted right next to a 50 watt (Ushio) MR16 recessed light to show customers. The MR16 still of course is crisper and whiter, but the LR6 is darn close. By far it's superior to incandescent and fluorescent.
I don't know what electricity pricing is in FL, but just in the amount of energy people save here in CA with the LR6, they cover the costs of the bulb.
Again though, they have to plunk down a lot of money to start with.

In general, I agree with the lighting designer. LEDs aren't ready for prime time (main task/ general lighting), except for the LR6. It is wonderfully engineered. It can actually sense when the color it is emitting goes out of whack. It'll then automatically adjust the LEDs internally to get back to the CRI you started with.
Cree doesn't use white LEDs within the bulb. They use a combination of yellows and other colors. They then have the frosted shade in front to give the final touch. White LEDs still aren't right.

But overall, waiting never really hurts. No matter what comes out, it'll be made for a standard 5" or 6" can. And the price most probably will drop in a year or so.

The sooner you get into LEDs the sooner you start saving money- evan at $100 a pop.

We bought 25 of the LLF LED LR6 bulbs at homeannex.com. They are listed on their site @ $129.00 ea., but because of the large quantity they sold them to us for $112.00 ea. PLUS no freight charges. If you go to creelighting.com there is a LR6 Can Compatibility chart to assist you with buying your cans. We bought ours at Home Depot.

We haven't installed our lighting yet but did sample one of them. We are very pleased with them. They are incandescent color.

I hope this helps! :)

Just a follow-up to my original post: found a local source for the LR6 this week, about $80 per, so we will be going with the LED technology in our recessed cans, 2700K, in the kitchen, dining and living room areas (16 cans) where the lights will get the most useage. I looked at a sample fixture in the showroom and it was very similar to an incandescent next to it. Thanks everyone, especially Lightguy, for the guidance! I'll let you all know how we like the final installation.

"but just in the amount of energy people save here in CA with the LR6, they cover the costs of the bulb. "

"The sooner you get into LEDs the sooner you start saving money- evan at $100 a pop."

OK, I'm just not seeing it.

If you suppose that the LR6 uses 1/4th the power of the 50W MR16, your savings in power is 37.5 watts. If it's burning 4 hours a day, that's a daily savings of 37.5*4 = 150 watt-hours. Times 365 days a year, that's 54.75 kilowatt-hours. At $0.10 per kWH, that $5.48 in energy savings per year.

If you figure 6% cost of funds on that $100 cost, your annual cost of funds is $6. You're not even close to "covering the costs of the bulb", or to the motto of "the sooner you get into LEDS, the sooner you can start saving money." You're not even covering the cost of funds, let alone even starting to touch the $100 capital cost.

To be fair though, the selling point of the LR6 is to an incandescent bulb, not an MR16.

So in truth, your energy savings will be *at least* 53 watts per bulb.

Also, an LR6 will outlast over 50 incandescent bulbs. So take into account what you are not paying for the 50+ bulbs.

Now, compared to an MR16- A good quality one will last 4,000 hours and cost around $10.00. That's over 12 bulbs (or $120.00) you won't buy if using an LR6. Or even $60.00 if you find them cheap on the web.
Add that to the energy savings and I think you can legitimately say it's a reasonable argument for the LR6.

So I think the statement that "the sooner you buy, the sooner you save," is a good one.

But particulars are different. At 2 hours a day, it's probably not worth it. At 4 hours, it's arguably a toss up, etc.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still a big fan of the MR16. If you look at my previous posts, I actually suggest going with MR16s now and upgrading them to LED when they're available.

But there is something to say for putting in a bulb now and have to even thing of changing it out for over 35 years (at 4 hours a day).