Best 46-48 in rptv -- Need recommendations (1 Viewer)

[Geoff H]

My brother is seeking advice for tv's, I 've a Mitsu 48" & told him I 've no complaints, he says he likes the Sony & Toshiba pictures better, but I then explained calibration...

Any advice would be appreciated

 

[Carlos Picart]

I have the Sony 46 inch. I've had it almost a week now. Out of the box the picture looked pretty good after color/contrast adjustment via the remote. I think that is the major benefit of the Sony (other than the aesthetic appeal), that it looks pretty damn good out of the box. The drawbacks are... it's rather low to the ground (a stand is available optional, altho currently free at Sony.com), it doesn't have a removable protective screen, and manual convergence may be more difficult than other sets (The set features auto-convergence, which to me seems to work really well).

Overall I've been pretty happy with my set. At some point I want to get it professionally calibrated, but right now DVD's are looking fantastic. A little pricier for a Sony but the overall cool factor has been pretty high amongst my viewing friends, and I've been pretty happy myself.

 

[Brian Kaz]

I own a Mitsubishi 46" 16:9 HDTV and it is fabulous. So-So for cable and DirecTV, but DVD and HDTV are phenomenal. I looked at Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic and Hitachi but the Mitsubishi had it all: Great Price, Great Performance, Build Quality and tons of inputs.

 

[Rich Chiavaroli]

The stand for the 46" Sony is also offered free at Circuit City. Other retailers may also offer it, but they're not required to. I belive Sears and BestBuy are not offering the free stand. That TV really needs to be about a foot higher, and fortunately the stand is 12 inches.

I just baught this set, but they were out of the TV. of the two local placed that were offering the free stand, one didn't have the stand, the other didn't have the TV. The one without the TV gave me a better deal and I went with them. It was hard to pass up the TV and the stand for less than the Toshiba 42h82 lists for right now.

There's also a ton of tweaking info for the WS500/WV600/WV700 Sonys out there. This is basically a tabletop version of the WS500 (Hence WT), and all config info applies.

 

[JackS]

I can understand why many would need and also prefer the 46wt stand. In my setup, the low profile of the Sony matches the approximate height of my equipment rack, thus making the Sony without the stand, very asethetic proportionally to my equip. and my small room. I would't mind raising the set 6"-8" inches, but feel that the 12" is a bit much for me. The one thing I would like about the stand is the extra shelving that it provides, and think many or even most people should consider it if buying this set.

 

[Carlos Picart]

I agree with you Jack.. luckily my L-shaped couch is very low to the ground to begin with, so it's fine for sit down viewing and maintaining eye level with the screen, not to mention the aesthetic is very nice with the wide screen lower than my tower speakers.

Also, Rich, could you perhaps provide some insight as to where I could find some tweaking information for the 46 inch set. I'm unable to manually adjust the convergence, and if there are some additional color settings I could access that would probably help is getting a better picture quality. As it is, I can auto-converge and adjust the color, picture/contrast, brightness, and tint. I'm just wondering what other peoples settings are as far as the TV that I have.

Thanks.

 

[Rich Chiavaroli]

Hrmm.. I'm pretty sure that with the stand, the center of the screen is about 40" off the ground. I'm 6'3" and my wife is 5'6". My eye level while sitting is about 41" from the ground and hers is about 39". Lowering the TV's center to 30" or lower, to me, would only work if we always layed down to watch TV or sat on the floor.

 

[BradZ]

Carlos,

for more tweaking you can go to a couple of places. try:

www.hometheaterspot.com

www.keohi.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sonyhs10/messages

the SPOT has a paid member area with lots of brand specific tweaks. Keohi has lots of basic info. and the HS10 yahoo group has a lot of Sony HD owners sharing info- it requires free registration. Good luck.

I'm really thinking hard about the Sony 46". It seems like its the best fit for my needs.

 

[JackS]

Rich- I would agree. You are probably going to need some extra elevation. The 12" stand may be perfect in your case.

 

[Carlos Picart]

Thanks Brad, I will look into those sites. I'm already a member of that yahoo group for Sony's. I've found a ton of information there on Sony sets.

As far as the set, I haven't been disappointed.

 

[Christopher~O]

I have the Sony 46" with the stand. You don't need to remove the protective screen, rather shuffle it behind the proper screeen to get rid of the reflection/glare. This will also prevent having a gap by taking out the screen completely.

I had this done by an ISF calibrator as part of his service, but it would have been possible for me to figure it out myself.

Convergence is a snap for this TV - again once I was shown how to do it.

Cheers,
Chris