Cool Tube: is it THAT good?

I happened to see a scheme where some bloke used Cool Tube. He had an intake to his cabinet but from there a duct straight to the CoolTube and the exhaust fan. Just as if he didn't need any sort of ventilation to his cabinet at all.
Is Cool Tube seriously THAT good?

Depends on your situation. Small tent with cool tube is a great combo. Thats what i do. I can keep it less then a foot from the tops of my plants. you get the same efeect from the hoods too. If your growing in a large area then bare bulb is the way to go.

Sounds like that was just for the cool tube. Would still need air movement in the cabinet. I have an exhaust fan attached to my cool tube, which exits out the tent. The intake side of my cool tube is open inside the tent, no ducting attached to a vent. I originally did this because I was waiting on ducting, but has been working great. I have a small fan on the floor for air movement, and the exhaust pulls the air inside the tent over the light and out the tent. Lights off, 69-70 degrees, lights on, 75-77 degrees. I run a 400 watt HPS, with about 200 watt CFL side lighting.

If I grew in a tent, it would be led or t5, just to hard to be consistent throughout the year with the heat spikes. Cool tubes aren't the most efficient.

Inline filter > inline fan > cool tube or light hood > out of tent or cabinet > out of room

Can run a 1k light this way and stay within 10 degrees of ambient temps.

I suggest a 24 x 24 or so light hood instead of a cool tube to spread the light even cause the cool tube only gives a small light footprint

to add to this an inline fan around 450 cfm will pull fresh air through the vents from the outside and all u need inside is a regular fan moving air around

I would only use a cool tube in a space I had to. I started with 4 cooltubes because I was super worried about heat and they were among the cheaper hoods available. I have slowly been replacing them with larger(still air cooled) hoods that offer better light reflection and a larger lighting footprint. In a small tent a cooltube will perform fine, but in a larger space I think they are less effecient than the larger, rectangular hoods. YMMV