In article ,
"Brian Gaff" writes:
It would be interesting to find out what it is about the compacts that
causes this, as I too find them naff. However if you pay a bit more and get
the proper white ones, they seem to do this less. i suspect then that its
the el cheapo coatings used that are the issue. could be persistance of the
phospher or maybe the emission frequencies of the stuff, I don't know.

No one's been able to find out, because in double-blind tests,
the claimed effects show no correleation with type of lighting.

There was certainly a measurable effect with poorly made
linear tubes running at mains frequency which end up
slightly rectifying and generating 50Hz or 60Hz flicker.
But that doesn't apply to CFLs.

Of course, you can buy cheap CFLs with poor coatings and
colour rendering, but they're actually quite hard to find
if you stear clear of no-names.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]