I have no idea where my post went. I clicked submit post and the screen that came up was blank. No way to get back to it. I'll try to recap. Love the Crees. Get the correct color spectrum as they have at least two choices. They are quite bright. In our kitchen/family room we have 4 zones - they are placed approximately 4 feet apart in line, but the rows vary somewhat in distance apart. The dimmers aren't great, so I control the brightness by turning on and off zones. I wish that I had one extra control zone in the family room because you could land a plane in the FR with the available light from the crees. If I could turn off every third light in the FR it would be about right - although threre are times when I want all the light possible. Our light sources for the kitchen and family room are the 4 zones of CREEs, 3 pendants, hood light, under cab light and three 4 inch "wall washer" cans in the family room- not cree. We used the cree's through out the house wherever we added cans, and I am very happy with the led light. The five main observations would be: poor ability to dim light, (I don't care), brighter than regular cans - to me anyway, their 4" cans actually use a 6" housing - don't get fooled- check specs, buy the correct color spectrum- warm white vs blue light, add multiple zones to make dimming options greater. I think you'll really like them.

We put in six LR6 lights in the kitchen and two in the dining room. One set flickered intermittantly even at full power when switched with a Lutron dimmer. I replaced the dimmer with a non-dimming switch - problem solved. Dimming to 20% power is a lot brighter than I thought it would be, for a couple of reasons. Light perception is a logarithmic function i.e. a light dimmed 50% looks barely dimmer - and the converse - doubling the light output (lumens) will not "look" twice as bright. The other factor is that LEDs do not shift color temperature toward "warm" as they dim. Will I replace the switch with a new, better dimmer? No. I don't think that dimming is all that important to me. Am I happy with my LR6s? Definitely!

We had the LR6 lights installed in our new house (THANKS, LIGHTGUY!!) and LOVE them! Even our electrical contractor was impressed. Spacing was no different from standard incandescent lights. I recommend the 2700K for a nice warm light. Some of our lights are as close as 30 inches or so in the kitchen, while others are 10 ft. apart in a hallway...depends on your needs.

If their spec sheets are to be believed - and IMO Cree are a reputable firm - these are some of the more efficient production LED systems. At 54 lumens per watt, they approach, but don't exceed, the typical 60-85 lumen per watt efficacy of compact fluorescent lamps. This is pretty good for a production LED. Many of the fixtures and retrofits being offered are far below this efficacy. Some expensive ones have struggled to achieve California's minimum requirements. Many of the cheap LED retrofits are major snow jobs, barely exceeding a 100 watt incandescent's efficacy. Another LED shady area (sorry) entails claims of their incandescent equivalence. I saw retailers claiming the LR6 has an output comparable to a 65 watt incandescent. I'm pretty skeptical about this. The LR6 is rated for an initial 650 lumens, declining to 455 lumens at 50,000 hours. This is roughly equivalent to a 45 watt incandescent when new, and slightly less than a 40 watt incandescent when aged. However, the fact that all the light is directed downward, rather than being partly absorbed by the fixture as with CFs, may improve the effective (usable) efficacy and lumen output of these emitters when fitted to recessed lights. Situations in which the LR6 would seem to be a strong candidate: 1. Where the fixture is tough to access, or where you have to pay someone union hourly rates to relamp, the long operating life is a real plus. 2. If you're planning to dim the lights, you may find the LR6 units respond more agreeably than CFs would. CFs sort of turn grey, at least in my experience. (The LR6s still dim down to only 20% or 30% output, however, and reportedly don't work with all brands/types of incandescent dimmers.) 3. If you're annoyed by CFs' slight delay in reaching full brightness, the lack of such a delay here may be right up your alley. At $25-$30 I'd call them a winner; with adjustment for inflation, that's what I spent for the first CF retrofits I bought in the early 1990s. But at the prices I've seen for them ($80-$110 each), it's hard for me to see much advantage to the LR6. Maybe the price will fall with time.