i dont have much experience with soil, but ph is still important in terms of availability for a plant to eat a certain minerals.
with soil your relying on microbes to feed roots, (you feed microbes and they exhange minerals for sugar)
syntehtics will skip microbes and feed roots, (ph is more...
yeah ive used both PAR/Reflector modles in the past, not the best LED but it will grow alright buds,
add calmagic first, unless your using silica,
run 18/6 for veg,
what size tent/room?
are you going to be running it full power or with switchs?
id leave them to be honest, you'd still have some light hitting the floor since no scrog/not 100% coverage of the tent, maybe try a little defoliation with some fan leaves if you want more light hitting them
HLG uses osram/samsung for 660nm reds,
i think i read somewhere that 1 osram 660 is equal to 4 epistar 660nm. the osram will last longer with a better peak while also maintaining its light output for longer.
imo using samsung diodes with epistars is bad idea since epistars lose their lightout...
yeah its the same company, mars hydro already has a tarnished name for wiring lights dodgy but its name is still known so they are building cheaper SMD lights, while new sub company sells the samsung diodes with no loss of sales.
IMO the boards that are using 3rd party diodes (osram) are made in USA or China
boards using only samsung diodes are made in south korea by samsung, inlc diablo. samsung wont pay to use 3rd party parts.
the orignal drivers were made in china but the quility was all over the place killing some...