A real-world test comparing the light output of the JW Speaker LED headlight to the original Ford halogen reflector headlight.
These photos were taken on July 16, 2020 on a desert road north of Phoenix, Arizona.
All photos below were taken using a Nikon D5 with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens using a Gitzo carbon fiber tripod and Really Right Stuff ball head securely holding the camera approximately 5′-6″ above the ground directly in between the headlights. Exposure settings were set to manual at ISO 1000, f/16 aperture, 5.0 second shutter speed, and white balance of 5,000K. The only post-processing effort involved only cropping the images to a 16:8 aspect ratio. You can click on any photo and it will enlarge the photo. Simply hit “back” on your browser to return to this post.
This is a dead-end road approximately 1/4 mile in length and perfectly straight. Orange cones with reflective tape were placed at 100′, 200′, 300′, 400′, 500′, 600′, 700′, and 800′ intervals. All even hundred foot spacings (200′, 400′, 600′, and 800′) are on the left side of the road and all odd hundred foot spacings (100′, 300′, 500′, and 700′) are on the right side of the road. The signage is only placed at the 100′ and 200′ spacing because the 8″ high numbers became too small to read. There is a car parked off of the right side of the road at approximately 300′ ahead of the coach.
Low Beam Comparison
The JW Speaker 8900 Evolution 2 on low beam is impressively bright and the color of the lighting is 5,000K simulating daylight compared to the halogen’s 3,000K. Most of the light output from the original Ford halogen reflector falls in the 50′-125′ range ahead of the coach which is only 0.5 to 1.3 seconds ahead of the coach at 65 miles per hour. If it weren’t for the DOT reflective tape on the cones it would be difficult to see anything beyond 200′-225′ in front of the coach. In contrast, the JW Speaker projection LED headlights are illuminating the road to 500′ in front of the coach – at least twice the distance of the Ford halogen headlight. The JW Speaker’s projection low beam also has a very precise horizontal cut-off to prevent blinding oncoming drivers.
High Beam Comparison
At first glance it would appear as though the original Ford halogen reflector is producing less light on high beam when comparing the photos of the low beam versus high beam, but the reality is that the Ford halogen reflector is “throwing” the light upwards and outwards without any real focus or control of the beam pattern. The inclusion of a road sign overhead or alongside the road would show the high-beam’s light output being higher than its low beam counterpart. I drove with my high beams on 100% of the time for over three years equating to at least 20,000 miles of night driving and met only three people who flashed their brights at me indicating that they felt I was blinding them.
The JW Speaker 8900 Evolution 2 high beam may very well be their most impressive high beam of all their headlight offerings since the larger size of the 5″x7″ headlight allows for two high-beam projection elements in lieu of only one that typically fits inside the smaller headlights’ form factor. As a side note to those purchasing the 8910 Evolution 2 heated version of this headlight, the DualBurn technology it includes would light this scene even more because it keeps the low beam element active when engaging the high beam elements. Think of it as layering the low and high beam photos on top of one another.
While the original Ford halogen high beam illuminates the higher elements found overhead or alongside the road out to 300′-400′ ahead of the coach, the JW Speaker high beam is producing light out to and beyond the 800′ marker on this road. JW Speaker’s specs indicate a 1.0 lux rating at nearly 800′ and a 0.25 lux rating at 1/4 of a mile (1,320′).
The photos above are a very good representation of the difference between each headlight technology when compared side by side on the same road, at the same time. We photographed the JW Speaker headlights first and then switched to the original Ford halogen reflector headlights. It was as if we switched to a 1980s flashlight with incandescent bulbs. What you see in the photos truly depicts the differences we saw with our own eyes doing this real-world comparison.
In the absence of the superior JW Speaker Projector LED headlights, your eyes would adjust to the lower lighting output of the halogen but eye fatigue and strain would shorten the length of time you would feel comfortable driving. Give your eyes the comfort of daylight (5,000K) illumination that is precisely and accurately projected in front of your coach using today’s LED lighting technology instead of halogen lighting technology from the 1980s.
JW Speaker 8900 Road Test Video
The YouTube video above represents a 2 minute and 16 second excerpt from a 45 mile driving test out in the Arizona desert. This area is completely devoid of any ambient light except for oncoming traffic and the night sky. Unlike the photos above which were taken on a tripod with a shutter speed of five seconds, the GoPro must be set to 30 frames per second to capture motion which makes it less capable of really showing the output of the JW Speaker headlights without a lot of digital noise in the video. YouTube also compresses this 4GB video file down to 1/8th of the original size using file compression which loses some of the quality in the process; however, it is a good indication of the relative difference between low beam and high beam when driving.
I have added a text header that indicates which beam pattern is illuminated on the JW Speaker 8900 Evolution 2 – low beam or high beam. The video was taken using my GoPro Hero 7 Black and GoPro’s 150 mile per hour rated suction cup stuck to the outside of my coach in the middle of the driver side windshield just below my line of site to create a point of view that is nearly identical to what the driver visualizes through the windshield.