I think new startup bulb design makers employing new technologies may have a hard time finding, keeping or maintaining reliable manufacturing facilities and materials compared to the corporations that've been around longer with deeper pockets.
This stuff is tricky. I've been trying to improve my understanding of color science by reading books on color science. Color science books are generally treated as college textbooks and are priced accordingly (usually more then $100 (US)). However, I've been able to find earlier editions of these books a lot cheaper.
Principles of Color Technology, 2nd edition, by Billmeyer and Saltzman is
still available for less than $6. I highly recommend this book. It is one of the standard references for color science but is easy to read (it uses jokes and cartoons to illustrate points.)
I somehow managed to buy a used copy of
Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitive Data and Formulae, Second Edition by Wysecki and Stiles for less than $30 on Amazon, but I don't see it offered at anywhere this price now.
Instead...The Wyszecki and Stiles book is tough reading anyway. It is very dense and is mostly dry technical proses with lots and lots of long equations. Needless to say, there are no jokes or cartoons. I read it, but I wouldn't want to take any test based on it.
I've been crawling the articles I linked to
in my earlier post and (if you follow all the links in each article), a lot of color theory that is germane to the color rendering issues are covered fairly extensively. A lot of what is covered in the above two textbooks is covered in the articles (if you crawl all the links.) At least regarding color rendering.
FWIW, here is a copy/paste from my notes of links to the articles I crawled:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=102190.msg843308#msg843308 http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2015/06/cree-restructures-led-business-in-face-of-mid-power-onslaught.html http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2014/09/penn-state-research-on-color-rendering-reinforces-soraa-s-led-claims.html Metrics aside, color rendering matters:
http://www.soraa.com/news/ctoblog-september-18-2014 http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2014/07/lumileds-delivers-broader-spectrum-in-crispwhite-cob-led.html http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2013/07/led-business-news-philips-financials-xicato-module-aixtron-epileds-crs.html http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2013/01/lighting-coalition-asks-epa-to-lower-energy-star-efficacy-specs-for-high-cri-lamps.html MacAdams...
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-3/features/ssl-must-still-clear-hurdles-to-enable-mass-adoption-of-led-lighting-magazine.html http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-11/issue-4/features/technology/led-advancements-drive-quality-of-light-gains.html http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2012/05/understand-color-science-to-maximize-success-with-leds-magazine.html
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-7/features/understand-color-science-to-maximize-success-with-leds-part-2-magazine.html
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-10/features/understand-color-science-to-maximize-success-with-leds-part-3.html
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-10/issue-2/features/understand-color-science-to-maximize-success-with-leds-part-4-magazine.html
That Imatest MR16 track light setup looks like the way to go for even broad full spectrum lighting. Glad there's a way to plug the rig into a wall. Thanks for the heads up on that, Wayne.
Sigh, with the SOTA for LEDs being what it is, I may go that route also. On the bright side, if Soraa steps their game up a bit, they also make MR-16 lamps so you could swap them out in the same track lighting fixtures.
Wayne