I researched a lot (A LOT) as I’m sure you know between my conversations with you and
@steamroller before I made my decision, one huge factor for me was reduced heat output for summer, but above that was the light shape, power daw and PPFD spread in the edges and what I could alter, it’ll hurt me in winter but I have plans to utilize my 24/7 veg tent for heat to dump into the flower tent at lights out over the winter. After that made me lean twords LED I started digging into I guess what you can call mid to high end LED’s and it came down to the
SE7000 like you had or the FC8000 only reason the marsh hydro won the debate was due to the physical characteristics of the light itself, yes in the end the FC-E8000 is what I ended up getting, and I’m still watching reviews and it appears it’s quite the competitor with the non “E” version. All in all at the end of the day, whatever works for you, in your environment, for your style is right, might not be for the next person but that’s why I spent weeks and weeks watching every YouTube video of 4 specific lights I was considering then messaging people who are actively using that specific light. I feel like people take a single data point and that’s all they look at, I know I can’t use the light I have at max power but that’s fine as I’ve learned running the LEDs at reduced power is more efficient, at the same time I was looking foreword and thinking about what I may evolve in the grow, yes I max out at 900PPFD at 20” at 70% but if I wanted to add Co2 in a year… I’d be pissed I spent $100 less on a light and then need to buy a $800 light later. Long read I know, just my opinion from someone who is only on their 2nd grow, seeing and recognizing my mistakes from the last run and utilizing resources to make a more informed decision. A lot of that help came from here, and a lot of reading across tons of sites and videos. If I had one opinion, pick a light, then look at every single other light in that range and do research in every single aspect you can find before you commit