headlight rant ahead

Silverstars don't work any better than stock bulbs. The Silverstars that are on the market in the US are blue tinted halogen bulbs. These bulbs work through the use of a filter coated on the outside of the bulb. This filter blocks off certain wavelengths of light and allows blue light to pass through. Halogen lights, by their nature, do not produce very much light in the blue spectrum. This is fine because blue light has the shortest wavelength of the color spectrum. The human eye has difficulty focusing on blue light at night because of its short wavelength. Halogens just weren't designed to output blue light because blue light does such a poor job at illuminating the road. So, in order to get that blue tint, a filter must be placed on the bulb to block out other wavelengths and let blue light pass through.

You can see this principle for yourself if you have a car with a blue tint strip on the top of the windshield. Find an orange colored streetlight. These types of street lights (high pressure sodium) output a great deal of lumens but it is primarily in the red side of the light spectrum. When you look at the light through the blue tint strip on your windshield, the light looks whiter. However, it is also much dimmer. What you see there is the same process that goes on when you equip a blue tinted halogen bulb on your car.

The skeptical may ask, "If the blue filter robs so much light away, how come Silverstars don't look any dimmer than my stock bulbs?" The answer is that the filament (the wire inside the bulb) is overdriven to compensate for the filter. Legal regulations only allow for certain wattages to be used on headlights, so the wattage cannot be increased. So what blue bulb manufacturers did was to use a filament meant for a lower voltage and use that to increase light output.

In engineering, there is no free lunch. In this case, the tradeoff is that the longevity of the bulb is reduced due to overdriving the filament.

So to summarize, don't buy Silverstar bulbs. They:

• are more expensive
• produce less useable light
• produce more glare to other drivers
• don't last as long as regular halogens

 

Yes, I'd stay away from American Silverstars. The Euro ones are great. No tacky blue crap.

 

How can you tell if silverstars are american or euro?

 

If they're branded Sylvania they are American. If they're branded Osram they are European. It is the same company, but I think they market stuff here under Sylvania and there under Osram for the most part.

You can also just look at the bulb itself, the glass of Osram Silverstars is not tinted like that of the Sylvania ones.

Funny how they have the same name, but are designed to do different things.

 

well......

have you tried these silverstars?

i think there the best thing out there, AND their 50 state legal.

try driving through fog in one of your blue headlight crap. cant see a damn thing.

as soon as i put the silverstars in the fog literaly melted away. Yeah if the price was right and i had a 2 chamber head lamp then HID's would be there. but for a lot less than HID's and a lottle more than the norm you can have HID like Color Temp than Pull Me over blue headlights.

but i can see better with them and thats all i need. i dont care it it last only 1-2 years but thats worth it to me

 

You can argue all you want that the Silverstars are brighter. However, it has been proven that Silverstars output less light.

http://www.overboost.com/story.asp?id=102

It is physically impossible for the silverstars to be brighter than other bulbs as they have a filter on them. A filter by nature removes light from its source. Compared to a clear bulb that has no filter, the difference is significant.

For the record, Philips Xtravision is a good bulb that actually increases light output through a better engineered fillament.

 

whats the "Better" bulb then i had silverstars for a while and the difference is night and day. but of course buying bulbs every year would drive me bonkers.

can i see some comparison pics. because i did my own with the silverstars just to show someone their a better bulb. but he was a ricer and wanted nothng but blue bulbs LOL

yeah 20.00 a bulb is harsh but so is 500-800 for a HID kit

 

For the best 9005/9006 bulbs use Sylvania Xtravision (pink package, many auto parts stores) or Philips High Visibility (black package, many Wal Mart stores).

You can also add in thicker gauge wiring to to the headlights and use a relay to control it with the factory wiring. Here is an example: http://www.humanspeakers.com/audi/headlight-simple.htm

Better wiring means less voltage drop and more voltage going to the bulbs.

However, the main problem is with the headlight assembly. U.S. spec headlights are ridiculously poor compared to European headlights. If the tC was only sold abroad in Europe, we could get some decent headlights without having to go to HID systems. European H4 bulbs throw a lot of light and are well worth it. Many BMW and Audi guys replace their headlights with H4 Euro specs.

 

worked for BMW for 3 years. only the enthuiest changed out their stock bulbs. but sylvania is the brand they use for all their lighting and Hella is their for most of their lenses and the like

 

i bout mine at pep boys they are the nekoi tokyo ones that are the platinum racing series and i am very satisfied with them. my boss got ssome silverstars and i think theylook the same as the factory lights.