If your designer does not know led comes in warm white, then is my question, is he realy a designer???

Yes, before I started such an expensive project, I found a qualified designer. He knows about LEDs in warm white, he just does not think the color is comparable to xenon. I was hoping for helpful, positive - even specific recommendations by posting my dilema.

Sorry but that information wasn't clear in your posting. I would ask yourself then if you can view both types of lighting. I believe in the Pareto principle - are you willing to pay a lot more for a subtle difference. That is only a question you can answer once you can compare the two yourself.

I personally have not yet become a fan of LED lights. They will probably get to the point they are comparable some time in the future, but they're not there yet, imo. We did a whole house in CREE LED lights for a client. Hundreds of them and we had to space the lights so close together as they have very little spread and the rooms still looked dim. We couldn't get a decent picture of the place, even a professional could not get the lighting to work to get reasonable pictures.

Back to undercabinet, we use the Xenon and they do get warm, but we have not had any problems with them. We get them from one of our local lighting stores and I don't know the brand.

You can probably go to a local electrical/lighting supply store and they will have displays of both.

Use your eyes to make the decision that will be comfortable for you. Below is a comparison we performed of LED on the left and Xenon on the right. There is no other illumination in the room. The brightest photo is at 100% and the lower level is at 35% dimmed. The LEDs are a 3000K. Of course the Xenon becomes a warmer temperature when dimmed where as the LEDs stay more of a consent color. Sorry for the poor image quality. Hope this helps everyone.

I wouls take LEDs anytime you will never change a bulb and the heat from Xenon is not good under cabinets, the warm white LEDs have a very nice light.

I am a graphic artist, creative type. I tell you this because I'm sensitive to design, color, tone and mood. We just did a whole kitchen remodel that I designed and I was insistent LED, dimmable, for our under cabinet lighting. We had our electrician hard wire and install them and to my dismay, the "warm white" was not warm enough. It felt like a store. Dimming them actually made them buzz slightly which I found unacceptable. And the dim light wasn't like candle-light dim. It was still an odd color. I hated it and we took it all out and replaced with xenon. It's beautiful. Yes, they do get warm. But not to the point where it would be a hazard. LEDs are just not quite there yet in my opinion. I've tried and tried because I love the idea of them. But I can't sacrifice having a weird color light in my home.

Good comment Ann! There are LED light sources that are adjustable between a warm 2000K colour up to a 4000K temperature. The adjustment is performed with an app on your personal device. You may consider no placing an food items on the bottom shelf above the halogen lamps. Hope this is helpful to others! ClearLED.biz