Truck lite vs jw speaker

I went with Trucklites, I couldn't justify the cost of JW's for the amount of a little brightness more than Trucklights.
 
JW Speakers after a couple of months

I put on a pair of JW Speaker Evolution J's on a couple of months ago. I love the extra visibility they provide (I do a lot of mountain driving at night). I got flashed a lot until I had them adjusted, now just the occasional moron with dirty windows will flash me. Last Thursday I drove a hundred miles in a Sierra snow storm. I had my stock fogs as well as the Speakers on and the light pattern kept getting more and more yellow. I pulled over and I had two inches of snow built up on my headlights. I'll take having to pull over occasionally to wipe the JW Speakers off for the illumination they provide. I am very happy with them. I am not knocking the Truck Lites as I have zero experience with them, I just really like my JW Speakers.
 
NFRs2000NYC said:
IMHO trucklites put out more light and are a better upgrade. To add to what Eddie said, the JWs APPEAR to put out more light, but that's due to the pretty poor projector design that "hotspots" in the center making it appear brighter...and while the dead center may be a tad brighter than the TLs, the extreme sides are pretty poorly lit...the TLs have a wider throw of more even light. The JWs look fantastic though. The old JWs were IMHO laughable for the money, the new ones are better, but still subpar IMHO when compared to say an OEM HID projector headlight. For the money, you are paying ONLY for the looks with JWs. If you want the best bang for the buck, the TLs are what you want. If you want the maximum possible output, you will have to go with an HID projector setup.
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I disagree from experience. Except for your wide pattern comment, which has been taken care of in the newer models. There are no hot spots in my JW's like there are in the Truck-Lites. The connectors are put together much better also. With the price hike of the Truck-Lites I can get the newest model JW's for like $20 more. That in my experience is $20 very well spent. I do like the looks of the Truck-Lites better though.
 
IBeHeWhoIsJoshua said:
I disagree from experience. Except for your wide pattern comment, which has been taken care of in the newer models. There are no hot spots in my JW's like there are in the Truck-Lites. The connectors are put together much better also. With the price hike of the Truck-Lites I can get the newest model JW's for like $20 more. That in my experience is $20 very well spent. I do like the looks of the Truck-Lites better though.
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How much are TLs now and which store/vendor?
 
Jackal01 said:
How much are TLs now and which store/vendor?
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The price I can get JW's for isn't online unfortunately. I also don't keep up on prices or shop a lot since it depresses me and my broken bank account. I wait for sales before even looking. I do use google shopping links a lot to at least avoid location based fees.
 
IBeHeWhoIsJoshua said:
The price I can get JW's for isn't online unfortunately. I also don't keep up on prices or shop a lot since it depresses me and my broken bank account. I wait for sales before even looking. I do use google shopping links a lot to at least avoid location based fees.
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I asked about Truck Lites.
 
I have been following this thread, and will probably go with the TLs when I upgrade.
Where can I get the best deal on the TLs?
 
I can only speak for the JW Speaker vs. stock and say it made a world of difference between the two. I am very happy with the light output from the JW's although I do get flashed a lot on back roads.
 
Bang for your buck you cannot beat Trucklites. $370 w/ anti-flicker is a great price for a huge improvement.

As far as brightness JW and TL are virtually the same, on paper JW is brighter but in person it's not noticeable. I went with JW because of one reason, but I think most people wouldn't care or even notice, the JW light cast is more even while TL has waviness of brightness (basically 3 hot spots from in front of bumper to down the road).

I almost always recommend people to go the TL route purely for the price and quality you get with TL. I wasn't concerned about the extra couple hundred dollars to have a the slight improvement of a projector headlight and that is why I got JW.
 
I know how everyone loves their led headlights - in particular JW's and Trucklites, but I'm done with mine. I've been running with JW Speaker for the better part of 6 months now and I finally switched over to a set of Trucklites. I ran the Trucklites for one hour before removing them. The brightness of both lights are great and they really light things up, but for the money, I just can't get over the hotspots of the Trucklites and the irregular beam pattern of the JW's (see my earlier post for a pic). Maybe those of you with either JW or Trucklite don't have these issues, or it just doesn't bother you enough because the light output is just that much better than stock. But for me, if I pay that much for a set of lights (close to a grand invested now), I kinda expect better than what I've seen with these lights. I've bought led lights from Inspired Engineering, Rigid, and even some cheap led's for my 4-wheeler and none of them have hotspots or irregular beam patterns. I contacted JW about what I thought is an abnormal light pattern, and they said it's absolutely normal - calling it a "chevron" and said its required by DOT. My Trucklites don't have anything similar to the JW "chevron", so who knows. My factory lights don't have it either, nor do they have any hot spots, they're just not that bright. And right now, after trying 2 of the most talked about led lights on most, if not all Jeep forums, I'm happy with going back to my stock lights. Luckily I'm not at a total loss. Since my dad and I both have Harley's, I was able to find homes for the JW's. I can live with one "chevron" in my light pattern (at least it points to the right side of the road). Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Take it for what it's worth to ya. It's only my experience and opinion - nothing more.
 
bfschor said:
I know how everyone loves their led headlights - in particular JW's and Trucklites, but I'm done with mine. I've been running with JW Speaker for the better part of 6 months now and I finally switched over to a set of Trucklites. I ran the Trucklites for one hour before removing them. The brightness of both lights are great and they really light things up, but for the money, I just can't get over the hotspots of the Trucklites and the irregular beam pattern of the JW's (see my earlier post for a pic). Maybe those of you with either JW or Trucklite don't have these issues, or it just doesn't bother you enough because the light output is just that much better than stock. But for me, if I pay that much for a set of lights (close to a grand invested now), I kinda expect better than what I've seen with these lights. I've bought led lights from Inspired Engineering, Rigid, and even some cheap led's for my 4-wheeler and none of them have hotspots or irregular beam patterns. I contacted JW about what I thought is an abnormal light pattern, and they said it's absolutely normal - calling it a "chevron" and said its required by DOT. My Trucklites don't have anything similar to the JW "chevron", so who knows. My factory lights don't have it either, nor do they have any hot spots, they're just not that bright. And right now, after trying 2 of the most talked about led lights on most, if not all Jeep forums, I'm happy with going back to my stock lights. Luckily I'm not at a total loss. Since my dad and I both have Harley's, I was able to find homes for the JW's. I can live with one "chevron" in my light pattern (at least it points to the right side of the road). Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Take it for what it's worth to ya. It's only my experience and opinion - nothing more.
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Did you adjust/aim the headlights? The beams cross at some point in my Trucklights which tells me I need to order the horizontal adjusters to get them aimed properly. You don't get that hot spot where the left and right beams cross on the oem headlights because they are too dim to really notice. Once properly aimed both vertically AND horizontally, the Trucklights are great. The problem is that the JK only has the verticle adjustment screws from the factory. If you need to make a horizontal adjustment, the dealer sells a cheap kit from Chrysler to install.
 
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highoctane said:
Did you adjust the headlights? The beams cross at some point in my Trucklights which tells me I need to order the horizontal adjusters to get them aimed properly.
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Just Dremel out the original screws to adjust. That's what I did and now the field of light is waaaaay better
 
littlered_jk said:
Just Dremel out the original screws to adjust. That's what I did and now the field of light is waaaaay better
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Yup, did this. I adjusted the beams left/right and up/down. The beam coverage (field of view) is great for both lights, but couldn't get rid of the chevron in the JW's or the hotspots in the Trucklites. Heck, while running the JW's, anyone I ever had in the Jeep would always ask if something was wrong with my lights or if they were a knock-off (I bought them from Northridge4x4).
 
bfschor said:
Yup, did this. I adjusted the beams left/right and up/down. The beam coverage (field of view) is great for both lights, but couldn't get rid of the chevron in the JW's or the hotspots in the Trucklites. Heck, while running the JW's, anyone I ever had in the Jeep would always ask if something was wrong with my lights or if they were a knock-off (I bought them from Northridge4x4).
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I'm running the kc led headlamps. When first installed the driver beam was way over to the passenger side. Big time noticed it in the fog. Created a hot spot. Did the dremel mod, moved left one over quite a bit, passenger over to the right just a tad. Now when I go through fog the beams are a straight shot. No hot spot, Yay. They're brighter than the Quadratec ones I had on before and I like their 23 year warranty. But as they say every vehicle is different on how it's built. Some people have installed these and never needed to adjust. Go figure. I agree that stock ones were great for beam direction but sucked for light output.
 
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