My Impressions: 61 inch Pioneer Plasma vs. 60 inch Sony SXRD at BB. (1 Viewer)

[Arthur S]

Dropped in to BB last Saturday. They had the 60 inch Sony SXRD on sale for about $3,600. Right next to it was the 61 inch Pioneer PDP6100HD Plasma for $9,300. The Pioneer is an "industrial" model, in that it does not have speakers or tuners built in.

The sets were not set up identically, (is anyone surprised?)

The colors on the Pioneer were very saturated and contrast looked to be at maximum. Brightness was ok, not what I would call "torch mode". The clarity and impact of the Pioneer was impressive.

The Sony looked good, but the color level was significantly lower than on the Pioneer. Contrast also looked to be significantly lower on the Sony.

I would have adjusted the Sony, however, they had some generic remote, not the Sony remote. Also, didn't really have time to play with it.

Good as the Pioneer looked, it would have been hard to justify the extra $6,000 (including the extra tax).

I only wish that I had had time to adjust the Sony to get a fair comparison.

For anyone out there with a bunch of money to spend on a 61 inch display, the Pioneer certainly was impressive.

One last note. TVA, has the Pioneer for several thousand dollars less than BB, should anyone actually be interested.

 

[Joe Szott]

In all fairness, they would both need to be adjusted before making a comparison. Plasmas have their own laundry list of stuff that needs to be tweaked to get a good picture, just like any other TV. Plasmas usually look better "out of the box" IMO, but they still need some adjustment to get a great picture.