Can anyone suggest an affordable plasma TV I may want to consider than can better the picture quality (PQ) of this old tube TV: Sony KV-27FS120 27-Inch FD Trinitron WEGA Flat Screen TV And by PQ I man black levels and color accuracy.

I’m wondering if today’s entry level or budget plasmas match or better the PQ of this older Sony tube TV, here’s why:

I have the 27” WEGA tube TV linked above. When I bought a PS3 two years ago it looked decent on the WEGA for a standard def set, but I wanted a HDTV so I purchased a Toshiba REGZA 37HL67 37-Inch 720p LCD As normal, to my eyes it looked better and I decided to keep the REGZA.

2 years later, today, I know a lot more about TV’s as I’ve been researching them a lot and playing around with calibration. Yesterday I was watching Planet Earth on blu ray on the REGZA. After I went to my bedroom with high def Planet Earth fresh in my head I decided to watch my standard def version of Planet Earth on the WEGA to compare how much better the blu ray version was….. And I was sad to see how much better the colors and blacks looked on my old TV. It was to the point that I may choose to watch the remaining episodes on the standard def version because I enjoyed it more on the WEGA due to the blacks, colors, and smoothness to the motion.

Since there are some 50” plasmas at Best Buy that are around the $1000.00 mark, and I know plasmas have better blacks and (no motion blur?) I was thinking to replace my REGZA with a new plasma set.

So if anyone had an experience of liking the PQ on a tube TV and then moved to plasma and either found the plasma better or worse I’d like to hear about your thoughts!

Ps. In case anyone is wondering I watched the HD Planet Earth in a dark room, with the movie preset settings (I found that to be better than the settings after calibrating with blu ray of Digital Video Essentials) and I watched the SD Planet Earth in an equally dark room on that TVs movie preset settings. View distance in both cases were about the same.

Basically what I found was that:
27” WEGA, PS2, component cables and SD Planet Earth looked better than 37” REGZA, PS3, HDMI and HD Planet Earth.

In the WEGA set up colors and motion were far superior and the crispness of the image was still good in that I clearly saw individual strands of bird feathers and animal fur despite the fact that SD version ran in widescreen on a 27” 4:3 set. On the 37” REGZA set I saw the same fine details but MARGINALY better, which I think is due to the fact that the set is a larger display.

Finally, in an attempt to pre-empt anyone who may say something like I must have my PS3 settings out of order that isn’t the case, I have PS3 settings optimized for blu ray and sending out a 1080P signal.

• NAD M15 Pre/Pro
• Quad 909 Stereo amp powering L/R KEF iQ90 speakers (this amp on these speakers is a toe-tapp’n set-up [very quick/tons of control] with a noticeably enjoyable mid-range).
• Emotiva XPA-3 powering C/LR/RR KEF iQ60c and a pair of iQ30 speakers
• Bag End Infrasub-12 (Home) *Wired for the Infra Bass Management* so it provides a perfectly integrated bottom-end that is quick and full. I run my processor with the L/R speakers set to Large, the Center set to small and Subwoofer set to NONE and then run these signals through the I-12’s crossover which sums the bass from the L/R full-range speaker signals and, along with the Center channel, applies a 2nd order (I think) crossover at 95Hz then it’s off to the amps. I set my rear crossovers to 80Hz for the iQ30s and put foam in the ports for better integration in Enhanced Stereo configurations.
• Sharp 46" LED-backlit LCD TV -700UN-series
• DVDO Edge VP
• Sony BDP-S550 (7.1 analog out to M15)
• TiVo HD XL + Netflix
• Harmony One Remote (fully-programmed :p)
• Monoprice cables
• Nakamichi DECK!.. Yo! lol
• etc…

100% Recycled ‘08 Zagat

Quick and Dirty Photoshop cut/paste/rotate Panoramic view

I just ordered a chair to fix the little, "basketball court" set-up I have goin’ on there in the middle of the room….

I did all of the work except for hanging the TV on the wall, my building’s Super did that for me. 6 bolts into concrete for a TV that weighs less than the mount it’s on - it’s never coming down

I hope you enjoy the pictures half as much as I enjoy watching/listening to everything!

-John

LETS. GO. YANKEES!