Sony KDF-60XBR950 Rear Projection
Sony KDF-60XBR950 Rear Projection
USER REVIEWS
[Mar 04, 2004]
James1
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
1. Bright, crystal clear picture at wide horizontal and vertical angles. 2. Good sound for a TV. 3. Good internal tuners. 4. Digital output for OTA HD stations 5. Plenty of inputs 6. OTA signal strength meter 7. You get what you pay for.
Weakness:
1. I wish the remote was backlit. 2. The manual could do a better job of explaining some features a bit better. The DRC and Cinemotion features are left unmentioned except how to enable and disable them. Exceptional television in all aspects. The 3 LCD panels seems to produce a picture that is better than the single micromirror device found in most DLPs. I agree with the other reviewers of this item with a few exceptions: 1. The inputs can de disabled through the menu so that you do not have to scroll through them all. 2. There are plenty of stands available for the TV. Bello makes some nice ones. The set is only 24" deep and weighs about 175lbs. 3. I personally don't find non-HD stations to be any worse than a composite video TV. Other noteworthy items are the over-the-air HD tuner seems to work very well. Something is still strange to me about using an attic antenna to get a "5.1 surround sound/better than DVD" quality picture. The twinview feature is really cool. This allows you to watch two different channels or inputs side by side with dynamic resizing. The cool thing is to be able to compare an HD broadcast with an SD broadcast side by side on the same screen! |
[Dec 31, 2003]
brianherb
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
Slim, light, bright, looks like plasma for 1/2 the cost. Very good built in speakers. Large viewing area, looks good even at sharp angles. Even at 60", DVDs are amazing! The finest details are clear.
Weakness:
Be prepared- normal TV will look poor when seen this big. Even our digital cable looks bad. HD is a must. Pedestal mount could be a bit larger- I'm going to secure the unit on the stand. Screen is dust magnet. Wider than nearly anything out there. Owner's manual could make plain answers to 2 questions- can you burn the screen with viewing modes and videogames? This is the show-stopper. Enormous screen, sharp details and incredible color out of the box. Very few stores have this model on display, but for those that do everyone's eyes are drawn to this unit. It compares against flatscreen LCDs and plasma so well that the store we bought it from had the 70" model front & center in the "room of plasma". The new LCD engine is far brighter and sharper than Sony's previous generation, and to me it has a superior image to the other new LCD technology, "Digital Light Projection". We purchased the 60" model with 5 year plan and Monster cable kit, so total was juat over $6k, but after 2 weeks of serious research, we determined that (a)We wanted to go big. Very big. (b)Our room was too bright in the daytime for standard projection TVs. (c) LCDs still cost too much for the sizes we looked at. (d) Plasmas only have a 5 year lifespan +/-, which works out to about $2k a year to watch TV. We need something that's going to last at least 8 years, and I'm hoping for 10. This left the digital projection models. I liked the brightness of the Samsung DLP, and we also gave very serious consideration to the new LCD projection LG units. But with DLP the technology is too new and frankly, the image is just not as sharp as the Sony with it's "older" LCD projection technology. The LG 60" unit had a fine picture and was less expensive, but the colors and detail were again not as good. This left us with the Sony as the clear winner, but on December 22, finding one was a bit difficult. Only Good Guys, Circuit City and this store carried the unit. Good Guys said 10 days (maybe), Circuit City said 32 were backordered, but Leigh Adams told us they had 6 in stock. We walked in, looked at the LG models one last time and made the deal for the WEGA. They matched the 10% that Good Guys had offered, delivery was free, and we had our Sony on December 26 by 10:00 a.m. I love the look of the huge flat screen and not much else in front. The speaker wings, though narrow, do make the WEGA very wide and it's best placed low, about 16" off the floor for best viewing, which makes finding furniture for it very difficult as we are now finding out. I'm hoping that soon more choices will become available. Sound quality from the speakers is at least as good as my Sony rack system. The unit is very slim, and is light for it's size. The buttons on the remote could be a little larger, but I will probably get the universal commander from Sony anyway. Last note: We used the Lord of The Rings-The Two Towers DVD as our yardstick in the stores, the Battle at Helm's Deep. Lots of fast motion, very dark shadows, deep bass and loud soundtrack. This is the keeper. After finally getting one home, I am amazed at the quality of the picture. I'm going to make some popcorn, have a soda machine installed and charge admission. I need to pay for this beast somehow. Similar Products Used: This is our first bigscreen, and it is outstanding on all counts. |