^^ I AGREE
No point in buying a lightbar for over a grand when you can get one that's rated the same with the same Cree led's but just doesn't have the name on it.. My totron is performing just as well as my friends rigid that he paid 4x as much for. I don't plan on putting it in a hydro press of smashing my roof into a tree..... Lights will be the least of my problems at that point.
Well, yes and no.
The no name ones more often than not, lie about what's in them, lie about the specs, and cut corners on the construction and longevity....TO make them cheaper.
So "The same Cree LED" can be a different Cree led, in a mount with less heat sinking, with thinner wires, and weaker solder joints, with gaskets that weather more quickly and allow water in more quickly, and so on and so forth.
On the "Cree LED" issue alone, there are many different Cree LED, for example there are MTG2, XML, and XML2, XPG and XPG2, XRE, XPE and so on and so forth. ONE MTG2 LED might put out as much as 3,000 lumens all by itself...whereas one XRE might be hard pressed to put out 200 lumens. An XPG2 might be able to be stretched to give 600 lumens, and an XML2 might be OK at 1,100 lumens, but to do those max numbers, the ground path and heat sinking, etc, needs to be perfect. Add to that that for the same sized reflector, the XPG2 , being smaller than say the XML2, will have more throw, even though the lumen output is lower (Makes less light but can throw it farther). The MTG2 might make 3k lumens but, being a huge LED, its pattern is very floody/not much throw....so "Cree LED" is like saying "Ford Motor Vehicle", it could be a fiesta or an F350, etc.
The focus of the light will almost always be a pattern that puts almost all of the light right in front of you, where it make you THINK you have "Really Bright Lights!", but which, in reality, is not projecting the light off into the distance where you MOSTLY needed it to see things out of range of your head lights.
The bright light right in front of you stops down your pupils, and makes your eyes adjust from night vision to day vision (BECAUSE its so bright close up), so, outside of that bright proximal pool, you see even less than before.
In racing, its referred to as the newbs having great illumination of what they are crashing into, and the experienced guy's having great illumination of what they need to avoid crashing into.
So paying a lot is no guarantee of quality, in fact, some of the ebay sellers sell the exact same light at different price points to catch those who think the more expensive one might be better. A name brand is going to typically put more work into their lights, and the stuff you can't SEE, such as the quality of the soldering and the durability of the gaskets chosen, and the thread overlaps on the threaded parts, and so on and so forth...might be better than the guy who sells the same LOOKING light for a lot less, by NOT sweating those details.
ALL LED light bars suffer from too much proximal light, as the reflectors are very shallow, and you need more depth on an LED to get throw, as opposed to an HID or halogen, etc, which uses a shallow reflector and wide bowl for the same purpose....so only the best of them have much range to begin with, especially compared to an HID.
Can you buy a **** ton of el cheapos for the price of one good light? Sure, and if you didn't really NEED the lights anyway, or to see better, its just an affectation or decoration, or, not having those lights is not going to be a big deal if they fail...sure, get disposable lights, and replace them as such.
If you only use them for slow speed crawling, so seeing past your high beams is not needed, etc, the pool of proximal light can be fine and dandy too.
After that, its just a question of your type of use/build and what fits your needs.
So, weight all that, and get what makes sense.