CBRWorld.net

HONDA CBR Sportbikes Community

Welcome to CBRWorld.net Sign in | Join | Help

Home

News

CBRWorld.net » CBRWorld Headlines » News, Reviews and Interviews (... » Sylvania/Osram Silverstar "HID Look" vs. OEM bulbs Review My Posts Active Unanswered

Sylvania/Osram Silverstar "HID Look" vs. OEM bulbs Review

Last post 07-17-2006, 05:15 AM by abadfish. 1 replies.


	Sort Posts: Previous Next

07-12-2006, 05:42 AM 240531

Kewl Breeze
Joined on 10-03-2004
Atlanta, GA State Pen
Posts 1,754

Sylvania/Osram Silverstar "HID Look" vs. OEM bulbs Review

Commercial Product

I have no affiliation of any kind with Sylvania or any of their affiliates.

I wanted to simply get better lights than OEM and quickly got confused at the vast amount of info. on the subject so hopefully this will help someone who's looking to do the same and as clueless as I was about the subject before I started to look.

I don't do a lot of night riding but when I do I want the best product available for light output. Not just to see better but also to BE seen better (day and night). I consider this just as important as a decent helmet and didn't want to go "cheap" when it came to the decision of which method to go with to get better visibility versus OEM ... but it just so happened that it wasn't that expensive.

I originally intended to install the real thing - the HID kit (not retrofit) and the whole thing done professionally but after exhaustive research for the past month I decided against it. Maybe in the not too distant future it may be more feasible but for now IMO it's not worth it based on some of the legitimate sources I researched. I know many of you already have HID's and I don't mean to offend anyone ... it's truly a remarkable product (esp. the ones that aren't fake and are installed properly) but the main factors that held me back (among others not listed) were:

The extreme cost to "do it right"
The fact that for the most part they are not street legal
The fact that the majority are not DOT approved in addition to the fact that many HID sellers are being forced to suspend selling until more research is done as to wether they cause accidents due to the glare they cause. I can't go in-depth here but there are pages and pages discussed on this issue if you wish to research it. The main summary was that if it does not have the proper housing and ballasts, the light is not "clean cut" and goes into oncoming traffics field of vision and blinds them (even when on low beam).

Anyway I didn't intend this to be an "Anti-HID" review, rather a review for an alternative option for anyone considering changing their OEM bulbs to something "better". I researched and found the best reviews overall were for the Sylvania Silverstar bulbs which produce much brighter whites than OEM and are about as close to HID as you can get without crossing the Halogen - HID barrier and provide much better peripheral illumination.

Q) How much whiter are SilverStar headlights?
A) SilverStar is up to 4000K on the color temperature scale, which is a white color that is closer to the color of daylight. Standard halogen headlights are about 3000K and have a yellowish color, in comparison.

I thought quite a bit about PIAA bulbs as well. From what I read and people I discussed this with, it seems PIAA is pretty comparable to these Silverstar's and I guess the only reason I went this route was due to a couple of friends recommendations that have used HID's, PIAA's as well as these Silverstar's and both claimed they prefer these over the other two types. I have no personal experience with the other two so I can't comment other what's mentioned above and to note that if the HID was done properly by the factory with the proper housing (like many luxury cars) I would definitely prefer that over any of them.

A couple of notes:
1) My bike requires 3 H7 bulbs (single filament) to change both the high and low beam but for many of you who have F4/F4i's you will get away cheaper than I did since you will be able to use the 2 dual filament bulbs.
2) There are sources on the net (esp. ones from overseas that have free shipping) that claim to sell these same bulbs cheaper then you can get them in the U.S. but they are NOT the same exact bulb. It is still made by Sylvania under there European division (Osram) but they are not as bright. Here's an excerpt from Sylvania's own website:

Q) What’s the difference between European and North American SilverStar?
A) The Sylvania North American SilverStar bulbs have a high tech amethyst blue coating to help give the whiter light appearance. The European SilverStar does not have a coating for the whiter light, making it more like the SYLVANIA (US) XtraVision product line. Both bulbs offer greater luminance (increased brightness).

My review so far is that what they claim seems to hold true ... after installation they do seem to be 50% brighter than OEM. Wether that translates into real world benefits, I will reserve judgment until I have used them a bit longer. The lines do seem to be cleaner and their claim that you see about 75 meters further down the road seems to hold true as well.

Total Cost for 3 Sylvania Silverstar H7 12v-55w bulbs from a local auto part store = $60.27

Here are some before and after shots:

I apologize for poor quality, I have a better camera on order but a lot of good that does you now Stick out tongue

I tried to keep distances, camera settings and angle of photos relatively the same for a fair comparison but unfortunately sun was going down as I was doing this so the ambient lighting is a bit different.

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE

Proof of Purchase Smile