I looked at many LED undercabinet lights, but the light quality is not as good as Xenon. I don't like the flat color rendition of LED and the cooler color temp. I ended up getting the stainless steel Kichler Xenon strip. The only benefit of LED, in my view, is the energy efficiency. But how long do you leave the undercabinet lights turned on every day? In our case, we don't turn it on that often so the energy savings would never pay for the extra cost. We are using LED on all of the other lights including the recessed room lights, because those will be turned on all the time.

I have the Juno Trac12 undercabinet xenon strips. I love them! I have had them for 4 years. They don't get hot, and also, the bulb life is so long that I haven't had to replace one bulb yet. When I bought mine, I was told Juno was "the BMW" of xenons. So they are higher cost compared to other xenon strips. It's up to you whether you want to pay that, or buy something more reasonably priced. One thing that makes the Juno Trac12's more expensive is that the transformer is a separate unit. Other brands like Kichler for example, make xenon undercab strips with the transformer built in, which will save a lot on the price. My advice, FWIW, is to get the xenon strips, but make sure they are the "open" style rather than the "closed" style. By "closed", I mean that the strips are covered by glass or plastic. The enclosure causes two things: heat build-up, and potential change to the clear white xenon color if the enclosure has any kind of tint or cloudiness to it. I know that Kichler and other manufacturers make both styles. Of course Xenons can be dimmed. Mine are on dimmers. I am kind of concerned that your electrician is asserting that Xenons cannot be dimmed. He must be confused or just not knowledgeable. Note though, that the dimmer switch needs to be specifically a low-voltage dimmer, not just a regular incandescent dimmer--it's not a big deal, maybe another $10 for the low-voltage version over the incandescent, and they're readily available at HD or an electrical supply store. As to your question of whether the entire length of the undercabinet should have the lights: I say yes. When you need undercabinet lighting, as I do on most cooking tasks, why would you want to be constrained only to a certain area of your counter? Also, since the electrician is there, might as well do the whole thing. As to worrying about "overkill", that's what dimmers are for! I use my dimmers all the time. When I am cooking I have the xenons on full strength, but a lot of other times I want soft light in the kitchen, and don't feel like having the ceiling cans on. So I turn on the Xenons, and have them on soft dim. One other thing you can do is have two dimmer switches, rather than one switch for the entire thing. That way, you can turn on one section of your undercabinet lighting if you don't want all of it on. I don't know what your layout is, but you could have one dimmer control, e.g., the left half of the undercabs, and them have another dimmer at the other end controlling the right half (hope I am making sense). Good luck!

Trinity_2010 - Xenon bulbs are low voltage. Your Kichler strips are line voltage because they have the transformer built into the strip that take the xenons from low voltage to line voltage. You will still need a low voltage dimmer, either a "magnetic low voltage dimmer" or an "electronic low voltage dimmer". Check with the Kichler installation instructions, or call the Kichler customer service phone number, to find out which low voltage dimmer your strips need. While low voltage dimmers are more expensive than line voltage dimmers, you do not need to spend the $90 that Coffeebeantown quoted. We purchased two electronic low voltage dimmers for our Juno xenon strips (one dimmer for each side of the kitchen). Ours (the Leviton IllumaTech IPE04-1LZ) cost about $47 each. There's also the Lutron Skylark SELV-300P for about $45. Another choice is the Lutron Diva DVELV-300P which is a bit more at $60, but still not as high as the $90 mentioned previously. Lutron makes several other designs for low voltage dimmers, and you can spend more if you want, but you don't have to. Keep in mind the total cost of your kitchen re-do, and what percentage of that is the low voltage dimmer cost of $50 or so.

I just had the Xenon under cabinet lights installed. Highly recommended by a trusted long time electrician. They do burn warm no question. To the point where if you have them wide open for 10 minutes, you will burn your hand. There is a high low switch on each fixture which I have not played with which could cool them down a bit. These lights are on a dimmer. My only concern is what is this heat doing to my new cabinets? Having said that, he is installing Xenon lights in multi million dollar houses for people that have unlimited budgets that can afford anything. It seems that most people, including myself, like that warm light that the Xenon gives off vs the cold light that the best of LED's offer. This electrician, who can install any light he wants, uses them and said that he has not replaced a bulb in the last 4 years of steady use. The light temperature is beautiful and does not cast a flare of light that many LED's do. Hope that helps someone...