Sony KV36FS120 36" FD Trinitron WEGA TV

Rating:
Summary: Great TV
Review: I just received this TV this week. It is definitely worth the price (even the shipping). At 220 LBS, it was money well spent having it delivered and set up by Eagle. The color and sound far excede any television that I have ever owned (this is my first Sony).

Rating:
Summary: Average television until it died.............
Review: I purchased this television locally from BestBuy during June of 2003. The picture was quite "grainy" using regular coax input, but otherwise performed fine. During October of 2004, the television simply shut off while we were watching it. When I tried to turn the television on, the standby light would flash. I followed the trouble shooting guide in the owners manual, and still nothing. I contacted Sony and the "technician" verbally repeated the trouble shooting guide despite my telling her that I had already went through the trouble shooting instructions. The "technician" then told me to contact the authorized repair center which was over an hour away from here. I was told it would be a $150 to look at the television, and it would be a costly repair. I contacted a local repair person who came to look at the television. Long story short, approximately $400 to repair, and the problem may still not be fixed. The repairman said that Sony will provide no technical help, requesting that he "start replacing parts" to try to cure the problem. The repairman then told me that in his experience when a television suffers a failure such as this, it will fail again during the next 12 months.

In conclusion, Sony told me sorry about my luck, and a repair did not prove economically feasable, so now we have a really nice 200+ lb. paperweight. I do not recommend this Sony or any other Sony according to the repairman as he said this and some similar problems are quite common in recently manufactured Sony products.



Rating:
Summary: Best Value in a Big-Screen TV
Review: I wanted to buy a big screen tv to replace my Sony 27" trinitron tv (the older, black one with the vertical flat but horizontally curved screen), which I now have in another room. I like the LCD and DLP projection tv's but they are still a few generations away from having a really smooth, grainfree picture to make it worth the several thousand dollars. On the other hand, tube tv's are a mature technology and give more screen for the money than other technologies. The tube takes a long, long time to burn out compared with projection tv's, so I don't have to worry about buying a new light bulb every few years.

So I decided to buy the KV36FS120. The unit weighs some 190 pounds, so if your house gets broken into, your expensive DVD and CD collection may get stolen but your tv will remain. You cannot lift the tv out of the box to save the box because it's too big and heavy so you must slice the box apart. The matching stand (which you buy separately) is straightforward to build, just remember to follow the instructions to the letter and resist the temptation to use Charles Atlas force in torquing the screws and fasteners, and the cutouts in the stand provide ample room for cabling purposes. The tv stand has plastic probes sticking out of the top to align and stabilize the tv on the stand and there is a strap to secure the back of the tv to the stand.

There are, if memory serves, four video inputs (one front composite input, a back component video input, S-video input and composite input) and an RF input. Sound quality is ok for built-in tv speakers but note that since BBE sound enhancement is used (it phase-aligns the sound so that it is clearer, benefitting voice intelligibility the most), the treble is brighter than usual and therefore it sounds a little bass-light even if the user base control is maxed out. I went into the service menu and increased its bass setting to the max setting to help balance the sound out. The user contrast control provides useful range, going from too low to too high control so you have enough range to work with. However, I felt the brightness control (remember that brightness controls the black level) at its highest setting was ever so slightly too low for my taste (I like the brightness control set so that blacks are shone as very dark gray, as this makes the picture less dark and forboding. So I went into the service menu and increased the SBRT). The sound balance is fine (i.e. the left and right channels are balanced with mono material) and the picture quality is very fine, but note that this set will not have as bright a picture as smaller Sonys. I have a satellite receiver hooked up to the S-video input and a Sony DVD player to the component input and the picture quality I get in both cases is very nice. On a scale of 1 to 10 for picture quality, I'd rate it a 7.5, and when you take price into account, I'd give it a 9. The LCD projection tv's will give a brighter image, to be sure, but then you're paying double there. As far a sreeen geometry goes, I don't really notice much distortion, as vertical lines look straight and likewise horizontal. There is a tilt control and I had to rotate the image one notch to get it perfectly horizontally aligned, though. The remote control features are quite standard for all the Sony tv's.

What don't I like about this unit? For one thing, I prefer black to silver for tv's since silver puts the room emphasis on the tv over the rest of the room and black is far less obtrusive in this regard. I wish the screen was brighter (but I suppose you'd need a super powerful tube to blast enough electrons to get a bright image). I wish the tv speakers were a bit bigger (but then Sony et al wouldn't be able to sell you a nice home theatre system). I wish the remote control could directly activate and de-activate the closed captioning (you have to go into the user menu to do this).

User tip: to help avoid a trip to the tv repairman, I would suggest a power bar with good line filtration to reduce voltage spikes and line noise. Remember that the power supply is the most important part of any electronic device, and the guts of any machine require good clean power to do their job reliably.


Rating:
Summary: Butt Ugly Silver
Review: TV should be an immersive experience ... not one where what you see is framed in a [...] silver frame. I was just going to buy this when I saw how obtrusive this is to the experience of enjoying a big screen TV - with the lights on or off, it's UGLY! You'll REALLY notice this when watching a movie with the lights off/dimly lit. Instead of the set "fading into the black" you'll find yourself focusing on the silver frame. Wait until there's the good old black/black matte version. Otherwise, go ahead, by the silver version and pay for it later when you'll SEE and EXPERIENCE the difference.