They lack penetrating power?
So if you had 300 ppf from the LED and 300 ppf from HID, you are saying there is a difference....I mean if one is different by 50 ppf or so, okay I get the comparison, which wouldn't be fair to begin with....maybe there is a reason that penetration is less....like Actual Output aka watts.....or better yet, photon to photon.....
Then we have to begin to take account genetics into it and environment....in short, I just think you made your predicitions a little too early.....
Lack penetration power, as in, they lose power more quickly over distance than HPS, so LED is more prone to light distance issues. Of course, if you were to measure at 1" away from bulb, then yeah they are probably the same or LED might win, but at 2 feet LED will not have as much power as HPS. I believe the units would be photon flux, or photons per area per unit time. And this is assuming the usual 3w chips, I now have 6w chips and have not tested this. Configuration of LEDs would also have a significance.
It could also be the throw angle of the chips themselves (all LED chips have a cone of light emitted at an included angle which can literally be about everything under 180 degrees) and the light pattern of the LED panel itself.
Another reason why its an argument about nothing...its honestly too apple vs orange. CMH vs HPS would be a better comparison since they are both tubes of a singular light source.
Not that it matters much, but the top growers I know are all HPS indoor, with supplemental LED's. I myself use both, and use LED solely in veg (white LEDs, not this weird purplish crap I see).
