I am finally getting an HDTV. Long time blog readers will know that I was going to get one back when we built our new house. Then I sat down at closing of the old house and was cut a check for $186. Whoops. Then, my wife was assaulted by two lowlife thugs in a restaurant parking lot and we received a little money from said restaurant. She wanted to use that money to get a TV, but ya know…I couldn’t do that. Every time I turn on the thing I’d think “wow my wife got the shit beat out of her so I could watch the Buckeyes in HD.”
Blood Money TV. Not good.
Anyway, Christmas is coming early this year and here’s what we’re looking at:
Sony 60″ SRXD KDS-60A3000 (on sale for $1900 at Circuit City)
Micra-6 5.1 speaker system w/ Subwoofer from Athena – we have an 11×13 room so these little beauties should work great.
We’re also on the fence about getting an HD DVD player.
I’m still debating the receiver, as well. Was thinking about the Pioneer VSX-516 or spending the extra cash on a Yamaha RX-V659.
Anyone have any experience with any of these?
The Blog for the Sports Gamer 
I have a Sony A2000 (Two generations before the set you mention). I think the Sony SXRD line is the best bang for the buck with it comes to a large display if you don’t HAVE to have a flat panel. Picture quality is excellent (not like you parent’s rear projection!) and as a gamer you don’t have to worry about burn in. A plasma with similar size and quality would cost at least three times as much (if you went with a 1080p model).
Having said that I would strongly suggest an extended warranty. My TV is in the shop right now getting a $1200 part replaced due to color uniformity issues. It’s only 8 months old.
I wouldn’t let that scare you away from an excellent TV though since I doubt my experience is typical. I’d just suggest a warranty if you can afford it. The SXRD is pretty new tech and there isn’t a lot of reliability data out there for it yet.
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I have that Pioneer receiver. It’s currently sitting in my basement unused. I had a ton of problems with it and my cable box where the audio would cut out for no reason and background music was horribly muted. Two different cable boxes had the same problem and when I replaced it with a Sony receiver, the problems magically went away.
Also, the lack of a volume display is a lot more annoying than you would think.
I would imagine that you could find receivers between 200 and 549. I think the Sony one I bought was 299 and it has HDMI switching and auto setup with a supplied mic. Setup was a breeze and it works beautifully.
If you want to go the Pioneer route, I can sell you one on the cheap. 😉
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LOL gee thanks
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I have the 50″ version of this TV and I think it is excellent. It is not as sexy and thin as the panel displays but I find the picture to be much smoother and less noisy, esp. when calibrated back from the normal default store settings.
This thing combined with an HD Tivo is the closest thing to sports TV nirvana that I can think of.
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Actually, I was wrong. I have the 50″ version of the XBR1 model which came out a bit earlier than this one.
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i have the micra system – they are OK depending on how big your room is – i underestimated and haven’t been all that happy with them. i’d look at the specs and whatever they say is the best fit for the room, take off 25% of their estimate
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how big is your room?
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this big
actually i don’t remember – it seems like 12 ft wide but pretty deep and the deepness is the problem – i’d have to guess like 20 ft deep or so
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yeah im only in an 11×13 tv room
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audioholics says to cap it at 11 x 11 for the micra 6’s
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by the way – ciruit city and wal mart has the toshiba hd-dvd player for under $200 right now
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pretty sure that’ll work with my set up. Although a few people keep pushing the Mission M70 speakers.
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with 5 free dvd’s – it doesn’t output to 1080p though so you might want to look at the a3 version for $299
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http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=919668
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thanks for all the feedback guys.
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I’m sure the Sony’s are great, but I bought a Samsung 61 inch DLP from abtelectronics last year (they sold a fancier model that best buy and CC didn’t carry). In the end I paid a little less than the big chains wanted for the lower model and they cut me a deal on the receiver I was looking at because I bought both at the same time.
I strongly recommend checking out ABT. I emailed them about cutting me a deal, they assigned me to a business account person who made me the good deal. They shipped the TV & receiver via a flatbed from Chicago to Richmond (for free), and when I asked her what I would do if there was a problem with TV when I got it (projection TV’s can be flaky) – IE should I call Samsung – she said to call her and they would ship me another and pick up the broken one. To be honest, I know it’s daunting to spend the money online but I remain confident I would have gotten better service from them if there had been a problem.
The days of brick and mortar giving you warm and fuzzy customer service are over.
EIther way, I would also recommend doing your research on AVSforum. I spent several years reading the “owners” thread on various TV models and learning more than I could ever imagine. Finally I felt the Samsung was the perfect match of price/features at 1080p and jumped in the deep end.
I don’t know much about the receivers you’re looking at, but I ended up with a high end Yamaha receiver and love it. I think Yamaha’s are great values/quality.
And if I was going to go hi-def, I would go blu-ray. I think they’ll win in the end.
I know a lot about A/V – I read for years on it before jumping in the deep end last Christmas – receiver (yamaha), speakers (axiomaudio.com), and TV (samsung). Ping me if you have any questions.
Either way, enjoy. I rarely visit AVS now because I bought want I wanted and I love it. Now I spend my time being blown away by the TV, movies, and music…lots of music 🙂
-Nick
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I think Sony has the best 4:3 pull down of any HD set. I got a 51 inch sony almost 4 years ago and the only complaint I have with it is that the screen is shiny and produces glare with lights on and it is heavier than hell. The new TVs don’t have the glare problem so you don’t have to worry about that. The other issue is lamp life. How long will the lamp last and what would it cost to replace it?
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Thanks for the info Nick.
I’m all set. Decisions made.
Blog post to follow.
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