You can toss together a 4 board qb132 light for like 200 bucks, n Imo a cmh + qb/cob system would be badass, phuking frost factory.
Yes that would be badass! All that UV from the CMH... However, as great as that is for home growers, licensed grows do need UL, CSA, ETL listed products for their grows. Insurance and whatnot requires it.
I believe that when the price point for a quality off the shelf 1000w replacement gets down to say $600 you will see the beginning of the end for new HPS sales. At that price it would pay for the extra cost in a year by saving a couple bulb changes and power savings. More people would be inclined to change out their 10+ lights when the payoff is short term.
I can't wait for those days and I am very excited about the future of indoor cultivation. Right now CMH is my favorite tech, it's price, light quality, bulb life, low heat... all good stuff there.
I would love to have all my row end lights changed from 400 watt HPS to LED and overhead lights changed from 1kW DE HPS to 600W DE CMH. My 4 ton AC units would only have to do light work then lol.