Thanks bro. Good info! Like I said, I totally don't have the experience to even compare what I have seen to anything else. I am very interested in upping the wattage, providing the right spectrum and getting some better results. I am very interested in the 405w Blackstar Chrome FSF. Have you heard anything regarding its performance?
For full disclosure, I work at Black Dog LED (notice my username
) and as such I will not bash anyone's product since that is not the purpose of these forums and I am here to help answer questions about LEDs and growing with them. There is so much bad information out there and we have been doing this for over three years and our experience growing with and using LEDs in general can be a resource for someone using any LEDs or considering them.
I have tested some Blackstar models and talked to those using them but never grown with them. We had a customer walk into our office with a Blackstar (not that particular model) and he had some questions. We ran a full test with it using our spectroradiometer and answered his questions.
I am not positive which model you are referring to. Are referring to the EFSF 12 2013? If so it claims 430-540 watts so not sure how you are getting the 405 but the range is a bit odd since you can easily get a wattage using a kill-a-watt which costs about $30 at home depot. Also, those newer ones are only listed as three bands which we just do not believe is optimal based on all of our research and existing research on plant biology. The cost per watt, which I believe is currently the best place to begin when comparing one light to another, is in line with industry standards.
The one thing that gives me real pause on this particular light is the footprint claim of 7' x 4' which is 28 sq. ft. (they do not give a veg and flower footprint) If we can agree a 1000w HID can flower a 4' x 4' area which is 16 sq. ft. they are implying that their light is capable of lighting a 75% larger area with less than half the power, so an implied efficiency increase of of something like 150%+. This is the type of marketing claim that gives LED a bad name since I can guarantee LED is not able to do this with the technology we have available today. That being said you may be very happy with the light and I would request you post your results in the forums if you get the light and grow with it.
Another con some people don't like is 'airier' buds -- i don't really believe this -- I think this is more a combination of strain and amount of lighting/bandwidth/brand. I have not had any issues on density with mine. 
new to the forum so I wanted to say hello but I also have a few questions and it seems I found exactly what I wanted when I found this thread. I'm searching for LED's for an 8x4 tent hydroponic SOG used just for flowering purposes and just wanted some opinions from people like me not from people trying to just sell me a product. What would you guys choose? I was close to getting some fixtures from eshine systems - extreme flower series(someone recommended them on a different forum). I don't know if it's ok for me to post links here...that would be the easiest way to show you what I had in mind. Still not sure how many watts would cover that area and how many wavelengths the spectrum should have. I was gonna go for 3x300w(epistar and bridgelux 3wled's, power consumption of 248W)11 band wavelenghts(concentrating mostly on the 660nm led's). is it better to get 1,2 more powerful(600-800w)units or 3 moderate ones? You guys really seem to know what you're talking about and I would especially appreciate Perro Negro's opinion on this. Price is also an issue...the ones I was interested in would have been somewhere around 350$/piece...your help will be greatly appreciated!