After having tried some other LED “hard” lights, I finally found the ones that work for me: The ARRI L5 and L7. They are true Fresnel lights (perfect beam control, you can cut the beam with barn doors). I’d compare them with Arri 300 /650 Plus Tungsten Fresnel regarding their 3200K output. The L5/L7 are expensive and fairly large, but offer unprecedented control: very large color temperature scale and a +/ green adjustment (that I wish all LED lights would have this feature). Then there’s the” RGB+W Color Gamut” mode which basically means: no more need for party gels! Hue and saturation can be adjusted. The L5 and L7 have a silent cooling fan which never caused any problem audio-wise. Multi-voltage/ built-in ballast are practical. And a good AC connector – other manufacturers should take a look.
It’s a bit early to officially retire traditional tungsten and HMI lighting – LED still can’t match the output of more powerful fixtures and especially the ARRI L-series is very expensive considering its output, but I expect this technology to gain a lot of momentum.
http://www.arri.com/lighting/lighting_equipment/lampheads/led_lampheads/l_series