TORCHSTAR LED MR16 Light Bulb, 7W=60W, 36 Degree Spotlight Bulbs, Accent, Track and Landscape Lighting, 2700K Soft White

I just bought 4 of these bulbs (I needed only 3, but 4 got me free shipping :) to replace some 50W MR16 halogens in our kitchen track lighting. The halogens have done a fine job, 5-6 hours per day every day for over ten years. Problems is, they get their 12V power from a wall-mounted transformer in our laundry - this is then wired through the wall cavity, a switch, to the lighting track. Said transformer gets very hot, far too hot to touch, and I was concerned that it was a fire hazard. Also, the power actually reaching the bulbs is only 9volts, due to voltage drop in the wiring ie, more unwanted heat.I read the reviews of the newer Torchstar bulbs and decided to give them a try, hoping they would do as good a job as the halogens, without the fire hazard. Here are my initial comments in no particular order.1 - bottom line, they work fine. I can not measure light output or color value, but subjectively they appear as bright and warm as the halogens. And my very fussy wife sez "they look fine to me".2 - I had to slightly shorten the pins to get the bulbs to fit snugly in their sockets.3 - Some reviewers have mentioned problems with pins on some MR16 LED's being "pushed inside" the LED assembly while being installed. I doubt that can happen with these bulbs, they appear to be very solidly made.4 - When powered on, the LED's look "different" from the h's, I will try to explain why: the light from the halogens comes from a bulb element deep inside the reflector, then reflects out from there - there is significant "side light". The light from the LED's comes only from the front face, there is very little side light. I guess this is what the "36 degrees" is all about. Also, the total distance from the pins to the front face is about 1/4 inch further than the halogens. So the LED light emerges somewhat further out compared with the halogens. Is this a problem? No, it just looks a bit different.5 - Update... forgot to mention, the transformer now gets warm to the touch after about an hour, but not hot. The LED bulbs do not "run cold", they actually get too hot to touch after a few minutes, this is no doubt due to heat dissipation from their heat sinks. ie, this is probably quite normal.I will update this review in a few months.Bob

I've installed 16 of these bulbs in our track lighting fixture. They seemed to be good replacements for the 35W halogens that we used to have, with a good light quality, no visible flicker (which a lot of the high end bulbs can have) and good light spread. I tried about a dozen different bulb brands before committing to these bulbs for the 16-light fixture, since all the lights need to be the same or it looks funny.The problem, and this is a big one, is that lots of these bulbs fail quickly. Within 3 months I had 25% (4 bulbs) fail. They just stop working.UPDATE 2/7/2015 Just had one of these burn out so badly internally that our entire house smelled of burning plastic. Took a while for us to realize it was coming from our track lighting (and not some wires burning elsewhere). At the same time another bulb burned out, further raising the failure rate. I opened up the casing on the dead bulb to see what was going on, and the electronics and PCB are just fried. Black suit everywhere and the acrid smell of burning electronics. I would post a picture of the charred bulb-- but Amazon doesn't seem to let me do that when updating a review.Update 4/5/2015 Well, another 2 bulbs have failed since the last update. That's now a total of 7 failures out of 16 in less than 6 months.Update 8/30/2015 Another 2 just died. That's 9 out of 16 dead in less than one year!!! Always the electronics -- about half the time they fail it smokes up our house, too.Update 10/24/2015 Another 2 just died. That's 11 out of 16 dead within 12 months. I am now switching out ALL OF THESE BULBS for the Hyperikon MR16 LEDs. Those have similar performance but have not shown he same horrible failure rate.Update 12/7/2015 3 more have died. That's 14 out of 16 dead within 12 months. (Glad that I took the time to write the date of install on these). What a waste of money. The only good news is that I can rip apart the housing, remove the fried PCB inside and then hook up a 24V DC supply and run these as strobe lights or whatever (the LEDs are still good).

I had initially written the 5 star review below for this light because the color and brightness of these LEDs are amazing. Unfortunately, about half of the LED bulbs I bought have now failed after 1 or 2 months. They start by randomly turning off and then back on. Eventually they stop working all together. This is very disappointing because I have been using Torchstar LEDs for years. My only complaint about their older LEDs was that the color was too cool. These new ones are very warm. I love them, but the premature failure is a deal breaker. On the bright side, their customer service is very good and they are exchanging my bulbs with no issue. Hopefully, the next batch is better. If they can address the quality issues I will be a customer for life.WOW!!! The search for a true warm LED 35 or 50 watt equivalent is over. Torchstar's new 5w, 6, and 8w 2700k warm white spotlights are amazing. I converted my landscape lighting over to LED a few years ago using the aluminum 3200k Torchstar LEDs. They were sufficient and affordable, but these new lights are OUTSTANDING!! These new ones are much warmer in color and match the original incandescent lights that came with my Malibu landscape lighting. The 7w LED is a true 50 watt equivalent, if not brighter. The 5w and 6w are equivalent to a 35 to 50 watt. Plus, they are shorter and will fit in almost any landscape lighting fixture that takes and MR16.You will not find another another brighter, warmer LED light, for this price, ANYWHERE. Well Done, Torchstar!!