| Editorial August 2004
A New TV
My aging Sony WEGA television had to go. The trusty but
well-worn monitor I’ve owned for the last several years was just not cutting the
mustard around the Fritz household anymore. I mean, how on earth could I continue using a
standard-definition 4:3 set, considering the slew of topflight progressive-scan DVD
players that would invariably come my way? It was time to go shopping for something better
-- better for review purposes, better for my personal enjoyment, and better for some other
reasons I’d soon find out.
But what should I buy? I had really liked a Sony XBR
I’d seen at Circuit City a few weeks back. A friend of mine had just bought a Samsung
DLP set that looked quite good. And the Panasonic CRTs seemed to offer excellent
performance for the money. Decisions, decisions.
But there were considerations involved other than simply
what I liked. Aren’t there always?
I typically place my monitor atop an A/V equipment rack,
which also holds a portion of my audio system. The rack I’ve been using is just big
enough to handle the current Sony TV, but there wasn’t a lot of excess space
available on that top shelf. This complicated my buying decision: If I were to get a
bigger TV, I’d have to get a bigger stand, which would also have to house at least
two audio components.
So, armed with a tape measure and high hopes, my wife,
Andrea, and I were off to the big-box stores. We first visited Circuit City and Best Buy,
just to get a feel for what we wanted and to perhaps narrow down the selection to a
reasonable number of sets. As I judiciously studied picture quality and spec sheets for
each model that interested me, an interesting and significant thing happened. I was
comparing a Sony CRT to a similar Panasonic placed right beside it when I glanced over to
see Andrea gazing at a Sony plasma and a Philips LCD. Hmmm. What’s she doing over
there?
Andrea: Hey honey, what about one of these?
Jeff: Those are expensive for what you get. We can
get a better-performing set with one of these conventional picture tubes.
Andrea: [casually walks over to look at the Sony
and Panasonic CRTs] Look how big those are -- the depth alone would put either of them
out into the middle of the living room.
Jeff: It’s not that much bigger than what we
have now . . . and look at how nice the Sony’s cabinet looks with that two-tone
finish.
(I was reaching for anything to shore up my
position. But then she dealt the deathblow.)
Andrea: Doesn’t a big TV placed between the
speakers mess up the sound of your stereo?
Where had she heard that?! Was it an article I
had written sometime in the distant past? Had she read something by one of our Home
Theater & Sound writers out to get me? Where’s Doug Blackburn when you need
him for one of his Anti-Flat-Panel Association (AFPA) rants?
But, alas, Andrea’s argument was overwhelming. First,
the room could more easily accommodate a flat-panel TV. In fact, when we’d designed
the room to begin with, we’d envisioned exactly that -- I just hadn’t planned on
it this soon. The prices weren’t that much more -- about $1000 more for
comparable screen sizes. Surprisingly, some of the specs on the LCDs were pretty good, and
were confirmed to my satisfaction in several side-by-side viewing comparisons. And once
Andrea had dug up, from somewhere deep in her subconscious, the fact that my system’s
sound would improve with a flat monitor as opposed to a large CRT, the deal was
sealed.
I’m now the proud owner of a Sharp Aquos LCD monitor,
which is mounted flat against the wall of my living-room home theater. It looks great in
the room, its performance is excellent, and my system has never sounded better. And
I’ve given up my membership in AFPA. (It was relatively painless.)
The upshot of the story: The market forces that are driving
the sales of flat-panel TVs are powerful and real. I’ve since had a dealer friend
tell me that more women than men are buying his plasmas and LCDs. That fact alone makes a
strong case that the future is overwhelmingly flat. Who knows? A flat panel might find its
way into your home -- just ask your spouse.
...Jeff Fritz
editor@hometheatersound.com |
