70 inchers

[itschris]

So, I was at Sams and was looking again at the 70" Sharp and Vizio. Both come in at about the same price... about $1500-1600. Both are 120hz and both seem like a lot of TV for the money. The Sony 70 at $2,200 or so is still a 120hz I believe but is backlit vs edge lit. Don't know that I care or if I should.

I realize that none of these tv's represent the highiest quality offerings and I'm sure there are smaller tvs with better pq and more options. But for the 70" market, what you guys think?

 

[fuzz092888]

C'mon man. What a misleading thread title

AFAIK, generally reviews advise backlit over edge lit since it is supposed to provide a more even and faster reacting picture.

 

[itschris]

I think the sony is backlit. I'm just trying to decide if it's worth $5-600 more. I don't know. My pool heater just blew up so I'm out $4,500 overnight... so I guess I'll be watching my DLP a bit longer. The new bulb pretty much made it new again. It seems everytime I"m about to pull the trigger, something new comes along and pees all over it.

 

[fuzz092888]

I think the sony is backlit. I'm just trying to decide if it's worth $5-600 more. I don't know. My pool heater just blew up so I'm out $4,500 overnight... so I guess I'll be watching my DLP a bit longer. The new bulb pretty much made it new again. It seems everytime I"m about to pull the trigger, something new comes along and pees all over it.

That sucks, sorry to hear that.

I'm not sure it necessarily is. From what I've read edgelits can be pretty darn nice, although I also read somewhere not too long ago, that backlist are supposed to hold up a little better long term.
Either way, I'm sure it'll be a darn nice TV.

Another tidbit that I read awhile back (so I'm not sure if it's still true) is that Sam's gets Sam's only models from some of the manufacturers, which tended to be slightly lower quality to meet the price point goals of Sam's. It may not still be true, I haven't been to Sam's in awhile.

But, hey, at least you've got a heated pool

 

[3db]

I think the sony is backlit. I'm just trying to decide if it's worth $5-600 more. I don't know. My pool heater just blew up so I'm out $4,500 overnight... so I guess I'll be watching my DLP a bit longer. The new bulb pretty much made it new again. It seems everytime I"m about to pull the trigger, something new comes along and pees all over it.

I hear ya. That sort of thing had kep me from buying a new sub for the last 3 to 4 years. Hopefully your run of bad luck is far shorter than mine.

 

[darien87]

I was looking at the Sharp 70" a couple of years ago and it was definitely nice. Not the best picture as you noted but great for the price. I'd go with the Sharp. I'm not a fan of Vizio and I HATE all Sony products with a passion.

 

[itschris]

The bad luck comes in big doses. It started about 3 months ago. First, the chiller for the wine collection went belly up. $2,200 just like that. Then the water heater. I heard it leaking around 10pm.. went out to a garage flowing with water. I shut the supply off which is suppose to cut the gas via some pressure switch. That didn't happen and apparently it doesn't exist... so either I was told wrong or misunderstood something when we built the house. Who knows. So... as the water leaked down it got super heated and the steam pressue eventually ruptured the tank. It was about 2am and I was just about to go to bed and as I walking through kitchen... BOOOOOM! I nearly **** myself. I ran out the garage and there was steam shooting out of the side of the heater. It nearly blew the expansion tank off it's threads. That was another $1,800 and about 10 years off my life.

Next I was watching TV and BOOM. The bulb blows. Still gun-shy from heater... I nearly browned myself again. Next morning I'm on a plane for work... and I decide... that's it... it's time for a new TV. That huge DLP is just looking dated. I come home late... cranky and tired and want to sit in the hot tub for a while. I notice the waterfall isn't running and the spill over from the hot tub to the pool isn't doing it's thing either... one of the pumps is broken. Whatever... I'll deal with another day. Go to turn the heater on... error messages all over the place... the whole thing is shot. Just over 4k for the pump, motor, and new heater. That was really the last demoralizing straw and also the latest big bill which sort of makes it hard for me to spend the 2K to replace something i can fix for $100. I guess I'll wait until after Christmas and see if there's good deals then.

I know there are a lot better tv's out there but I want to go bigger than 65". The way i look at it, is that these tv's in SAMS are probably lesser quality models than you get at Best Buy maybe, but at the same time... they probably on par if not better than the best models out there just a couple or so years ago. Either way... probably still better than my DLP. I hear the biggest complaint is the jaggies and mosaic effects on sports and some dark movie scenes, but read that it's actually cured by turning off all the enhancement features in the setup menu. That's what I did with my current DLP and the picture is significantly better. Thoughts on this?

 

[3db]

The bad luck comes in big doses. It started about 3 months ago. First, the chiller for the wine collection went belly up. $2,200 just like that. Then the water heater. I heard it leaking around 10pm.. went out to a garage flowing with water. I shut the supply off which is suppose to cut the gas via some pressure switch. That didn't happen and apparently it doesn't exist... so either I was told wrong or misunderstood something when we built the house. Who knows. So... as the water leaked down it got super heated and the steam pressue eventually ruptured the tank. It was about 2am and I was just about to go to bed and as I walking through kitchen... BOOOOOM! I nearly **** myself. I ran out the garage and there was steam shooting out of the side of the heater. It nearly blew the expansion tank off it's threads. That was another $1,800 and about 10 years off my life.

Next I was watching TV and BOOM. The bulb blows. Still gun-shy from heater... I nearly browned myself again. Next morning I'm on a plane for work... and I decide... that's it... it's time for a new TV. That huge DLP is just looking dated. I come home late... cranky and tired and want to sit in the hot tub for a while. I notice the waterfall isn't running and the spill over from the hot tub to the pool isn't doing it's thing either... one of the pumps is broken. Whatever... I'll deal with another day. Go to turn the heater on... error messages all over the place... the whole thing is shot. Just over 4k for the pump, motor, and new heater. That was really the last demoralizing straw and also the latest big bill which sort of makes it hard for me to spend the 2K to replace something i can fix for $100. I guess I'll wait until after Christmas and see if there's good deals then.

I know there are a lot better tv's out there but I want to go bigger than 65". The way i look at it, is that these tv's in SAMS are probably lesser quality models than you get at Best Buy maybe, but at the same time... they probably on par if not better than the best models out there just a couple or so years ago. Either way... probably still better than my DLP. I hear the biggest complaint is the jaggies and mosaic effects on sports and some dark movie scenes, but read that it's actually cured by turning off all the enhancement features in the setup menu. That's what I did with my current DLP and the picture is significantly better. Thoughts on this?

I have a 47" 4 year old Vizio 120 Hz LCD that still works fine. Its far from being the last word in black levels but I can honestly say that I've not once seen jaggies/mosiac effect on my screen. The colors are very nice on the display. Vizio isn't being sold in my neck of the woods. I had picked mine up at Costco but I haven't seen them in teh last 3 - 4 years .

 

[itschris]

They're huge here in my neck of the woods in FL. I belong to both SAMs and Costco and they are big on Vizio. I'm not opposed to Vizio at all... I think they've come a long way. They are about $75 cheaper than the Sharps in 70" at the big box locations.

 

[Rickster71]

They're huge here in my neck of the woods in FL. I belong to both SAMs and Costco and they are big on Vizio. I'm not opposed to Vizio at all... I think they've come a long way. They are about $75 cheaper than the Sharps in 70" at the big box locations.

Assuming the slim chance you don't already know this: Costco has other items and TVs available on line only.
51" and Above

 

[darien87]

First, the chiller for the wine collection went belly up. $2,200 just like that. Then the water heater. I heard it leaking around 10pm.. went out to a garage flowing with water. I shut the supply off which is suppose to cut the gas via some pressure switch. That didn't happen and apparently it doesn't exist... so either I was told wrong or misunderstood something when we built the house. Who knows. So... as the water leaked down it got super heated and the steam pressue eventually ruptured the tank. It was about 2am and I was just about to go to bed and as I walking through kitchen... BOOOOOM! I nearly **** myself. I ran out the garage and there was steam shooting out of the side of the heater. It nearly blew the expansion tank off it's threads. That was another $1,800 and about 10 years off my life.

Next I was watching TV and BOOM. The bulb blows. Still gun-shy from heater... I nearly browned myself again. Next morning I'm on a plane for work... and I decide... that's it... it's time for a new TV. That huge DLP is just looking dated. I come home late... cranky and tired and want to sit in the hot tub for a while. I notice the waterfall isn't running and the spill over from the hot tub to the pool isn't doing it's thing either... one of the pumps is broken. Whatever... I'll deal with another day. Go to turn the heater on... error messages all over the place... the whole thing is shot. Just over 4k for the pump, motor, and new heater. That was really the last demoralizing straw and also the latest big bill which sort of makes it hard for me to spend the 2K to replace something i can fix for $100. I guess I'll wait until after Christmas and see if there's good deals then.

Geez. First World problems huh?

 

[fuzz092888]

Wow, that's a whole lotta awful all bunched together. Sorry to hear that. I remember hearing a water heater do that one time and it was extremely terrifying. It sounded like WWIII and I was getting bombed. On the other side, you're due for a sh!t ton of good karma

The bad luck comes in big doses. It started about 3 months ago. First, the chiller for the wine collection went belly up. $2,200 just like that. Then the water heater. I heard it leaking around 10pm.. went out to a garage flowing with water. I shut the supply off which is suppose to cut the gas via some pressure switch. That didn't happen and apparently it doesn't exist... so either I was told wrong or misunderstood something when we built the house. Who knows. So... as the water leaked down it got super heated and the steam pressue eventually ruptured the tank. It was about 2am and I was just about to go to bed and as I walking through kitchen... BOOOOOM! I nearly **** myself. I ran out the garage and there was steam shooting out of the side of the heater. It nearly blew the expansion tank off it's threads. That was another $1,800 and about 10 years off my life.

Next I was watching TV and BOOM. The bulb blows. Still gun-shy from heater... I nearly browned myself again. Next morning I'm on a plane for work... and I decide... that's it... it's time for a new TV. That huge DLP is just looking dated. I come home late... cranky and tired and want to sit in the hot tub for a while. I notice the waterfall isn't running and the spill over from the hot tub to the pool isn't doing it's thing either... one of the pumps is broken. Whatever... I'll deal with another day. Go to turn the heater on... error messages all over the place... the whole thing is shot. Just over 4k for the pump, motor, and new heater. That was really the last demoralizing straw and also the latest big bill which sort of makes it hard for me to spend the 2K to replace something i can fix for $100. I guess I'll wait until after Christmas and see if there's good deals then.

I know there are a lot better tv's out there but I want to go bigger than 65". The way i look at it, is that these tv's in SAMS are probably lesser quality models than you get at Best Buy maybe, but at the same time... they probably on par if not better than the best models out there just a couple or so years ago. Either way... probably still better than my DLP. I hear the biggest complaint is the jaggies and mosaic effects on sports and some dark movie scenes, but read that it's actually cured by turning off all the enhancement features in the setup menu. That's what I did with my current DLP and the picture is significantly better. Thoughts on this?

 

[itschris]

Assuming the slim chance you don't already know this: Costco has other items and TVs available on line only.
51" and Above

Hmmm... actually I did not know that SAMSUNG made a 75". It's expensive and has a lot of stuff that would already be redundant in my setup, but it's tempting. Theres seems to be so many different iterations of the Sharp and Vizio models, it's not easy to compare. In my head, it's just really hard to be paying $1,600 for a 70" tv even if it lacks some of the bells and whistles and may be a bit middle of the pack on performance. At 2K+, I have a new parameter to think about... the wife. I bought a nice 50" Samsung for the bedroom and she does almost all of her tv and iPad mirroring in there. So now she's even less motivated to spend any real amount on a TV for the other room where I mostly watch... espcially since the TV is working again.

Funny how that works that way.

 

[agarwalro]

I remember hearing a water heater do that one time and it was extremely terrifying. It sounded like WWIII and I was getting bombed.

Jeez, with these, CSS SDX10 Custom Sub (Baby Boomer), Custom LMS Ultra Dual Opposed, Custom 18" Pierce Audio Sub I would imagine it feels like WWWIII every time you watch a movie. Even one like, The King's Speech .

 

[fuzz092888]

Jeez, with these, CSS SDX10 Custom Sub (Baby Boomer), Custom LMS Ultra Dual Opposed, Custom 18" Pierce Audio Sub I would imagine it feels like WWWIII every time you watch a movie. Even one like, The King's Speech .

I know you're joking, but when listening at reference playback, it's amazing how dynamic a soundtrack some movies had that you wouldn't normally consider as having one. I'm not necessarily talking about bone crushing bass and crazy sound effects, but when you hear the soundtrack as it was meant to be heard you can sometimes find you missed out on a lot of lower level detail, or some detail that really added to a scene.

That isn't to say I haven't tried to take the place down a few times One memorable time was when I was watching "The Bourne Legacy" I saw it in theaters and the scene when the cabin exploded definitely was not all that shocking. Watching it at home, between the quiet right before it happened and then the following shockwave, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Clearly I had to watch it at least 4 more times before I could watch the rest of the movie

 

[itschris]

Geez. First World problems huh?

I have to tell you... I do feel quite stupid and ashamed now and then when I think about the things I have to complain about... sitting in traffic in my new car with plush leather seats with endless entertainment options at my finger tips.... not having a waterfall and hot tub working... breaking the band on my Rolex... not being able to replace my 65" dlp with a 70" led. You think about those things and feel quite foolish and ashamed. I mean... the water in my hot tub that I lounge in sipping wine has cleaner water than a lot people even have to drink in other countries. I think about all those folks who literally have nothing after that typhoon. Most of my issues are trivial annoyances and I sit here in my office wondering what do I really have to complain about? It's all perspective I guess.

We try to give a lot to charity each year... I sometimes wonder if it's because I feel guilty and want to think of myself as a giver to make myself feel better or if I really want to help. I think it's both, but I hope it leans more to latter.

 

[Rickster71]

I have to tell you... I do feel quite stupid and ashamed now and then when I think about the things I have to complain about... sitting in traffic in my new car with plush leather seats with endless entertainment options at my finger tips.... not having a waterfall and hot tub working... breaking the band on my Rolex... not being able to replace my 65" dlp with a 70" led. You think about those things and feel quite foolish and ashamed. I mean... the water in my hot tub that I lounge in sipping wine has cleaner water than a lot people even have to drink in other countries. I think about all those folks who literally have nothing after that typhoon. Most of my issues are trivial annoyances and I sit here in my office wondering what do I really have to complain about? It's all perspective I guess.

We try to give a lot to charity each year... I sometimes wonder if it's because I feel guilty and want to think of myself as a giver to make myself feel better or if I really want to help. I think it's both, but I hope it leans more to latter.

Just be careful out there.
If something goes wrong with the towel warmers; that's a sure sign of an impending Apocalypse.

 

[itschris]

Just be careful out there.
If something goes wrong with the towel warmers; that's a sure sign of an impending Apocalypse.

You know what's sad? We actually have towel warmers... in Florida. I'm such a d*ck.

 

[3db]

You know what's sad? We actually have towel warmers... in Florida. I'm such a d*ck.

Towel warmers in Florida? The word wuss or wimp comes more to mind than d*ck. You guys wouldn't last a season in Canada.

 

[3db]

I have to tell you... I do feel quite stupid and ashamed now and then when I think about the things I have to complain about... sitting in traffic in my new car with plush leather seats with endless entertainment options at my finger tips.... not having a waterfall and hot tub working... breaking the band on my Rolex... not being able to replace my 65" dlp with a 70" led. You think about those things and feel quite foolish and ashamed. I mean... the water in my hot tub that I lounge in sipping wine has cleaner water than a lot people even have to drink in other countries. I think about all those folks who literally have nothing after that typhoon. Most of my issues are trivial annoyances and I sit here in my office wondering what do I really have to complain about? It's all perspective I guess.



We try to give a lot to charity each year... I sometimes wonder if it's because I feel guilty and want to think of myself as a giver to make myself feel better or if I really want to help. I think it's both, but I hope it leans more to latter.

We all get caught up in the rat race. However, sometimes, taking a step back and looking at what we have compared to 3rd world puts our problem more into perspective of not reallying having a problem. Broken things do suck but not having shelter or to be able to eat just sucks a whole lot more. No worries. No one judged you expcet for maybe the wussy towel warmer thing.