I'm a bit confused Rick... 4300K is pure, white light. The terms "warm" and "cool" are relative the light spectrum. Warm is lower on the scale, given the light a yellow tint. When you move above 4300K, it is considered cool, with a tint of blue. For example, if you've ever been blinded by one of those dumbasses that swap out their headlights with irritating blue and purple HID headlights, those would be considered "cool white". Yellow fog lights on the other hand would be considered "warm white". 12V halogens are typically very close to 4300K.

I see 4300K as being too orange. It's better than incandescent, but to look "white" to me I need in the 6000K range.

If you look at the CIE 1931 x,y chromaticity space, there is no pure white. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/PlanckianLocus.png A theoretical black body heated to various temps just arcs from red to blue.

Randy- in photography, only 5200°K and above is typically considered daylight.... with tungsten at 3200°K.

I don't know what to think now.... When you buy bulbs for a vehicle, 4300K is white. Anything above that and you start getting a blue tint. When calibrating a display, you shoot for 6500K to a neutral white. Maybe there are different standards for different applications?

There are definitely different standards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_illuminant

The eye white balances pretty easily. If the majority of the headlights are 4300K, then anything above that will look blue. But if all majority of the headlights were 6500K, then the few 4300K bulbs would look orange, and the former would appear white.

All the lights in my apartment are 5900K CFLs with a CRI of at least 94, everything looks nice and white when I'm inside. But when I'm outside at night, under sodium vapor street lights my apartment looks like it has blue bulbs.

Michael, whenever I get home later I'll try to find out exactly what lights we do have and I'll let you know. The pictures do make the lights appear yellowish, but in reality they are not.

If you sit a piece of white paper down, and let the LEDs be the only light source, then you take a picture of the paper with the lights in the frame, and white balance on the paper, the lights will look white. (That'll also tell you the approximate color temp of the lights.)

Your eyes do the same thing, if the primary light is coming from the LED strips they'll look white. And if they match the rest of the lights around you'll still think they look white. What I'm getting at is when you have a mixed light source, the dominate color will appear white, and the others will look blue or red shifted.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. All you need to prove to yourself that you eye quickly adjusts for white balance is to wear tinted sunglasses or ski goggles. When you first put them on, the effect is a little jarring, but you quickly adjust. Then, when you take them off, all whites look way off for a bit. The effect is very pronounced when there's a lot of snow.

When I installed my first HID's in one of my rigs, I was told to go with 6000K, and that they were the "brightest". I hated the damn things. They turned the snow on the road blue, hid black ice and gave me a friggin headache. I then moved to 4300K and everything looked clear, no blue or yellow tint whatsoever.

Rick - that would be much appreciated. I need to order some more lights, and if these warm whites that I have now are too yellow, I'll send them back and get cool white. The only reason I bought the warm white was because the cabinet maker I spoke to told me the warm white looked more natural and the cool white were pretty bright and better suited for task lights, verse ambient / accent.

Mike my wife said I didn't listen to her, say's I never listen to her ... said she told me our lights are 'soft white' rather then 'cool white', it was either cool white or bright white that was mistakenly installed on two of the kitchen cabinets that neither her or myself liked, even the electrician and our contractor said they looked too artificial, not a ton difference but a difference.

I looked for some numbers on the lights and could not find anything that would indicate a color code or color reference so as far as exactly what they are I really can't tell you, sorry. If I get a chance within the next couple of days I'll call the electrician and get some information, whenever he told us about them he just said the lights we got is what he installs on 90% of the homes he does. I do know that he ordered the lights from a company in California though.