What is the difference between a high CRI LED strip and a full spectrum LED strip?
A high CRI LED strip only tells you that eight pastel test colours average well — a board can hit Ra 90 with almost no deep red in it. A full spectrum LED strip is measured differently: the emission curve runs continuously from 380 nm to 780 nm with no cyan dip and no oversized blue spike. DENO builds these at Ra 95+ with R9 above 90 and TM-30 Rf around 93, so reds, timber and skin look the way they do under daylight instead of just scoring well on paper.
Why Ra alone hides the shape of the spectrum
Ra is the arithmetic mean of the first eight CIE test colours, all of them low-saturation pastels. A blue-pump white LED with a deep cyan dip and a weak red tail can still average Ra 90, because none of those eight samples is saturated enough to expose the missing bands. The moment the same board lights a red fabric, a mahogany veneer or a slice of meat, the deficit becomes visible as a flat, grey-brown cast.
TM-30 was written to close that gap. It uses 99 colour evaluation samples and reports fidelity (Rf), gamut (Rg) and a hue-by-hue vector graphic. A DENO full spectrum board typically measures Rf 93 with Rg near 100, meaning colours are both accurate and neither over-saturated nor washed out. Every production lot ships with the measured SPD file at 5 nm resolution, so a specifier can verify the curve rather than trust a single index number.
Where the difference is worth paying for
Full spectrum is the correct specification wherever colour judgement is part of the work or part of the sale. Where efficacy drives the energy calculation, a blue-pump Ra 90 board remains the better engineering answer.
- Galleries, museums and archives — faithful pigment rendering with low UV load
- Fashion, jewellery and cosmetics retail, where saturated reds decide a purchase
- Photo, video and colour-grading suites needing TM-30 Rf above 90
- Clinical rooms — dermatology, dental and examination lighting
- High-end residential where timber, stone and skin tones dominate
Industry references and standards
- Metrology & laboratories — ANSI/IES TM-30 Colour Rendition Method — Rf / Rg fidelity and gamut metrics quoted throughout our spectral data.
- Museums & conservation — CIE 157: Control of Damage to Museum Objects by Optical Radiation — Exposure limits and damage factors used by museum lighting schedules.
- Metrology & laboratories — NIST Optical Radiation Measurement — Traceable photometric and spectroradiometric measurement references.
More full spectrum answers
- Is violet-excited high CRI LED lighting better than a normal blue-chip white LED?
- Is 90 CRI enough, or do you need a 95 or 98 CRI LED strip?
- Which high density LED strip stops you seeing dots in a shallow cove?
- Are high CRI LED strips available in 24V, and do they dim without changing colour?
- Can you use a full spectrum LED strip to grow plants?
- Can I get custom made full spectrum LED strip lights?