that sounds odd. maybe in an open area
flat white paint is over 90% reflective. And many people use better than that for their walls. of course getting the light on the plants is of primary importance Kinda reminds me of when cree's "reference design" (which was ok but not all that) claimed to match a gavita with half the wattage... and it was all how they measured the light
quantifying different light techs is difficult without a goniophotometer or a 2m sphere. I was going to run another series of tests with current boards and cobs using this setup:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/par-test-of-cobs-vs-samsung-561-boards.942636/
@wietefras @ledgardener id love to hear critiques on this ad-hoc method and how i could improve it
basically it is setup to account for the different throw of cobs and midpowers by being far enough away that the light is predominantly uniform and reflected (sort of like in a sphere where there is a baffle to make it all reflected light). In this case we do ahve direct light but again its pretty far away, that angle of incidence doesnt really matter. You can see in post 12 of that thread that all the measurements on the floor of the tent are within 5% of each other for both boards and cobs.
this doesnt really address your light throw comment, as its intended as a gross output/efficiency measurement. but i agree if you are wasting light cobs are much more easy to use reflectors with.
