Alpharex NOVA vs RX350 Modded

Hey everyone. Just wanted to share my experience with NOVA headlights on my 2018 Tacoma. Haven't seen great comparison/cutoff pictures because everyone just raves about the looks of it - influencers included.

I got a set of the Alpharex NOVA during Black Friday for 25% off so decided to pull the trigger. I knew they were going to be bad, but thought I could justify the performance because it has the 2020 OEM LED look. I was wrong. Also worth to note, their customer service was terrible. All images shot at F1.8 1/15 ISO250 same setting.

Wake up people!

Alpharex NOVA



RX350 + STI-R clear lens + Osram CBB + 45W ballast

 

Looks great! Who did your retro?

 

I did it myself.
https://thetrailhunters.com/diy/toyota-tacoma-hid-projector-retrofit-and-bhlm-diy/

 

More proof that Alphrex is a downgrade in performance. Thanks for sharing. Unfortunately, folks will continue to buy them "because they look cool." Words fail me. Thank god headlights are only a safety item.

 

Excellent work! You aren’t in the Phoenix area are you?

 

No I'm in Socal ‍♂️

 

F&$@ alpharex and f@$& Tacomabeast

 

I bought the cheapest model alpharex and slapped some high wattage Amazon leds in them. The output is actually better than your nova headlights.

 

That will just create horrible amounts of high intensity foreground light and no distance light (distance light is the purpose of a headlight). People are always impressed with significant foreground light, because we are more sensitive to it, so rate it higher in importance/perception. But those lights with replacement LEDs will project significantly shorter than stock, aka be a major lighting downgrade, despite what the significant increase in short range foreground light would have you believe.

 

They are surprisingly better than my previous hid retrofitted spyder lights with upgraded projectors. Other than the pattern covering more area with the retros. I'm quite pleased with them. I do understand all about where light should be focused in the pattern, and I will say that there is more foreground light than I'd prefer but I can see rather quite well at night. Most of the year I drive to and from work in darkness.

 

Not to pick on you, but. Spyder lights are bottom of the barrel headlight trash and I'd bet money you used an illegitimate H1 knock off China HID retrofit projectors as promoted by so many poor quality retrofitters out for profit and convenience, even though they are well documented to produce horrible results compared to a proper HID lamp. So unless you were running a proper HID setup like an OEM grade D2S setup, such as the projectors out of a Lexus RX350, the results are going to be poor. The China HID projector setup will also have very poor quality foreground light and lack of distance light due to lack of quality engineering in the projector. This is well documented for brands like Morimoto's cheap aftermarket conversions and why they should be avoided. I bring this up because of the baseline. Someone with proper OEM grade retros would laugh at your statement because there is no comparison at all. But someone that has gone the cheap route on retros with poor quality products that lack the optical engineering might see them as nearly equivalent.

 

I'll be honest I have no idea what parts I used anymore, but I spent more on the retrofit, from TRS, than I did on the spyder headlights themselves. At the time they were really nice, until I i upgraded. I'm not trying to say that alpharex or spyder are good headlights. They aren't. But I feel safe driving at night so I'll not complain. And the alpharex do.look pretty good

 

Just ordered 2020 pro leds to replace my 19 projectors.. ordering the harness from https://www.theretrofitsource.com/toyota-

spend the few $$ to get the Quality.. alpharex 1200.. Factory 1500.. longevity and quality priceless