Your experience; cheap vs good HID bulbs

I am new to growing and got my room setup with 600's in coolhoods daisy chained with inline fan duct setup... Its great for temps and seemingly performs great but Ive never had expensive bulbs before

Are they worth it? Im using digital ballasts 600w hps/mh and like to run atleast 1 mh per 3 hps but only 20$ apollo hid bulbs. anyway what do you guys think? Have you noticed any increased gains when upgrading bulbs?

I have used several different bulbs and seems to me the cheaper bulbs lose power faster. I know I have to change out the cheaper bulbs more often anyway from lumen loss.
As far as yield differences, recently I replaced an expensive bulb (older) with a new apollo and had a nice yield jump in the next batch. If I had a box with a brand new expensive bulb next to a box with a brand new cheap bulb, there would probably be a slight difference, but not so much to really matter (IMO).

ive been rocking Apollo bulbs for 4+ yrs and have excellent results. I use their ballasts also. I tried to put in ushio super reds in, but blew 3 new bulbs and 3 newer ballasts all within 5 seconds of firing up. not sure why, but I would love to give another bulb brand a shot, esp the ushio red bulbs. but afraid to blow more bulbs and ballasts. it was a very expensive repair.

Any of you guys know what fuse to get to replace in a 1000 watt Apollo digi? I don't see any with the same markings at the hardware store. Thank goodness I put a magnetic in there too just cause I knew it was only a matter of time.

Its not about the Bulb its about your footprint and your PAR.

You need high PAR.

I used to use Hortilux as great bulbs but then Digilux came out and was a killer bulbs.
Genisis HPS has by far the best PAR of any HPS out their curently.
If you can Id suggest switching to DE ( double ended) not to be confused with dual arc.
Thats if you have a bit on money to spend and looking for max yields.
Otherwise get a Genisis HPS.
Any help give me a PM mate