Marantz VP12S4 vs. Sony VPL VW100 (1 Viewer)

[bobNo]

Can anyone give me good reasons to pay 14K for the Marantz VP12S4 as apposed to 10K for the Sony VPL VW100. The Marantz is 720P and the Sopny 1080P. The Marantz has gotten rave reviews, but I'm trying to figure out why the price difference. If you had the money, which would you buy? Any explanations would be great.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

The ruby. Or depending, I may consider waiting for 1080pDLP.

 

[Paul_Scott]

if i was spending $10,000 or more, i would go with the Ruby.
however, if you were interested in a pj that seems to compare very favorably with the Marantz with a street price under $4500, you may want to research the Benq PE8720.

Projectorreviews.com has a very good, detailed review of it, in which he specifically references the Marantz.

 

[Derek1]

Well since I have personal experience with all Marantz 12S-x models, I'll throw in my two cents. There have been many improvements over the years in the Marantz 12S models. Contrast has gotten better every year since the 12S1 came out. Color fidelity has also improved significantly. But with the 12S4 they raised the bar very high with what in my opinion has to be the finest built in scaler that exists in any projector. Most decent products out there use some form of the Faroudja DCDI cipsets. Marantz used this in previous models (S1, S2, S3) however for the S4 the worked with Gennum to develop an entirely new processing chipset array. To be blunt it is fantastic! without getting far to technical it's leaps and bounds above the DCDI from Faroudja (a very good product in it's own right)

Best of all there has recently been a very substantial price drop on the S4. So if you are still in the market take another look.

FYI there is also a 11S1 due out that is a 1080p product also with Gennum processing.

 

[Mattias_ka]

There are no reason at all to pay 4K$ MORE for 720P, when you can have 1080P and 17000:1 CR.
I did go for the Ruby, and all reviews I have read, people have prefer the Ruby over the S4 (I know of one that sold his S4 and got the Ruby).

 

[JediFonger]

ruby? is that marantz? what's the etymology?

if i were spending more than $3k, i'd go for 1080p.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

ruby is the sony vw100

 

[JediFonger]

ah, thanks. where did that phrase come from?

 

[ChrisWiggles]

I believe it was internal nomenclature popularized on AVS when discussing this projector. I don't think it was ever publicly used by sony.