Although LED's have made considerable improvements in color and have a more pleasing 'preceived' look they are still a light source that's not full spectrum. The sun, fire, incedescent and halogen are all full spectrum and natural. I don't like unnatural light sources for reading. Fortunately, LED's are so efficient using so much less energy that they make complete sense for any situation that has a limited power supply. If I hadn't sold our boat last year I would have swapped out most lights for LED's starting with the navigation lights. Where I would have kept our halogen is for specific reading lights. The Sun has a CRI (color rendering index) of 100. The best high technology LED's are about 90 at present and are very good although very expensive. Halogen comes in at about 98, a standard florescent is around 60. A CRI of 90 on an LED is pretty good. Unfortunately they make LED's with a CRI of less than 70.

Dimmable LED's use an electronic method of dimming by pulsing on and off faster than your 'persistence of vision' can a register in combination with changing the number of individual LED's that are on. I can't help thinking that the combination of a light source that has gaps in the color spectrum combined with a really fast flickering will screw with your brain.

We're working on energy efficiency in our 'fixer-up' home and tested high end LED dimmable lights but rejected them as we could see the flickering through our peripheral vision and didn't like the color, especially in the kitchen for lighting food.

If you're thinking of using 'dimmable LED's for reading purposes' I'd give it some real thought. My position probably stems from my history as a Director of Photography on feature films and my knowledge of the way different light sources and dimming of those light sources work and are registered on film. Film registers what is. Your brain compensates skewing all the colors.

There are usually specs. posted on the color spectrum of LED's and the method of dimming. Do some research on dimming LED's before making a decision on using them for reading lights. Just because you may not be able to consciously see the flickering it doesn't mean it's not messing with your brain.