Osram Silverstar Not As Good As Sylvania SilverStar

Just take a look at the rated life of the H1 Sylvania Silverstar.

100 freakin' hours for the 64150ST, consuming 65 watts compared to the standard 55 watt bulbs. I don't know about the Forester, but I have to remove the battery if I want to replace the left bulb on my WRX.

The Sylvania (blue) Silverstar bulbs do have very short rated life, because the only way to get legal-minimum flux (amount of light) through the light-stealing blue glass is to overdrive the filament. It works, but there's no free lunch; filament life is extremely short.

That said, the wattage thing isn't quite as clear-cut as it might seem. The wattage we refer to when we say something like "A 12v H1 is a 55w bulb" is just the nominal wattage, not the actual wattage of any particular brand and type of H1. In fact, each bulb type has a nominal and maximum-allowable power rating. For H1, the US ratings are 12.8v, 65w max,

1410 lumens +/- 210. The rest-of-world ratings are 13.2v, 68w max, 1550 lumens +/- 15%. Note that this doesn't mean rest-of-world H1s are different from US H1s; it's just the rating system that's different.

Likewise, the little "Really, we promise, these blue bulbs are street legal, honest..." slips of paper that come packaged with Silverstar bulbs (to show to the officer when you're pulled over for having blue lights) don't list the bulbs' actual luminous output, but rather just list the nominal output.

Here's manufacturer data for output and lifespan at 13.2v for all the Osram/Sylvania H1 bulbs. Lifespan is given as Tc, the hour figure at which

63.2 percent of the bulbs have failed. (the Sylvania catalogue YPW pointed to uses rated average life, technically known as B50, which is the hour figure at which 50 percent of the bulbs have failed B50 numbers are lower than Tc numbers).

Osram or Sylvania H1 (regular normal):

1550 lumens, 650 hours

Osram or Sylvania H1 long life:

1460 lumens, 1200 hours

Osram H1 Super (if Sylvania Xtravision line included H1, this'd be it):

1700 lumens, 350 hours

Osram H1 Silver Star (NOT Sylvania Silver Star):

1770 lumens, 350 hours

Osram H1 CoolBlue or Sylvania H1 Silver Star:

1380 lumens, 225 hours

Now, looking over these results, which one would you rather:

(a) Buy? (b) Sell?

The answer to (a) depends on how well you want to see versus how often to change the bulb. The answer to (b) is determined by how rich your company's shareholders want you to be, and is obvious: You want to sell the bulb with the shortest lifespan and highest price.

DS

legal, honest..." slips of paper that come packaged with Silverstar bulbs (to show to the officer when you're pulled over for having blue lights)

don't list the bulbs' actual luminous output, but rather just list the nominal output.

Nobody's arguing to the contrary.

C'mon. DS has manufacturer's info stating that the total light output of the H1 Sylvania Silverstar is less than Sylvania's standard or long life versions. If I recall, the purplish tint is meant to filter out some of the yellow light output. It may not be as blue as some bulbs, but they're more blue than standard bulbs.

I remember some UK auto mag (Auto Express?) did tests where they used light meters to test for light intensity at various places (near/sides/far/etc), and the Osram Silverstar got top honors. I can't seem to find that particular review, but I found the following, which includes a review of the Osram CoolBlue (same as the Sylvania Silverstar).

"That 'ultra cool' coating took its toll, causing it to lag behind more effective, if less trendy, rivals. Despite the coating we had expected to see this OE supplier higher the rankings. More work needed."

They seemed to have good reveiws of some of the repackaged Narva bulbs.

It's all a part of my vast one-man conspiracy, don'tchyaknow ;-)

Yep. And since the human visual system is most sensitive to yellow-to-yellow-green light under mesopic (e.g. night driving) conditions, that's a gutpunch to the amount of usable light from the bulb.

AutoExpress' H4 (=9003, =HB2) bulb tests-

Standard and blue bulbs ("Osram CoolBlue" is what is sold in North America as "Sylvania Silverstar"):

"Plus 30" high efficiency bulbs ("Osram Super" is what is sold in North America as "Sylvania Xtravision", while "Philips Premium" is available in North America as "Wagner BriteLite" and "Candlepower Bright Light"):

"Plus 50" ultra high efficiency bulbs (Osram Silverstar is available in North America as Candlepower Super Bright Light, or -- like the Philips VisionPlus -- can be ordered from one of the overseas websites that ships worldwide. This test doesn't cover some of the newest Plus-50s like the Narva Rangepower+50):

The AutoExpress website will let you view up to two articles before it wants you to "register" -- throwing phony info at it will make it shut up and let you see more stories.

This site you linked to is a "grab and repost" of the AutoExpress H1 bulb tests of a few years ago (AutoExpress no longer has this article available; they cull them after a year or two regardless of relevance). Here's the H7 version:

DS