but I didn't get to see what it REALLY could do, ime. Good room, with black ceiling and front, dark red side walls, dark grey carpet. Not as good as my room though, even though my ceiling is white. This room was much more light reflective. However, a lot of this probably also has to do with my screen being a retro-reflector, and my curtains just absorb better than dark walls do. And black carpet still beats dark grey carpet. There was an utter lack of acoustical treatments. Front stage consisting of smaller Martin Logan electrostats. They were much less reflective visually than I would have suspected (never really noticed them), but then again they were placed at a considerable distance from the image.
It is not calibrated, simply OTB, like everything else at this place.
The PJ was angled up considerably, and at first I asked if it was to induce extra contrast by way of vertical shift, but they said it was because the previous RS2 had a lens setup that was heavier than the PJ itself, and they did that to help out with the weight's effect. Upon asking, he didn't know which lens it was offhand (though he installed it), and I glanced at it and it did not say any name brand written in plain sight. I didn't want to bother him in looking it up.
The screen was a high gloss Draper, cinemascope, fixed, but since there was no longer a scope setup, and what I saw was Transformers with the full "16:9" shrunk to fit, so that black bars were present both at the top, bottom, and sides. I guess at a very rough 105" image (I think the Draper might be 132"). The screen was placed much too high, IMO. Before I continue, I want to note the choice of screen and room setup plays huge roles. I am now even more convinced that ambient light control of the room is the number one most important thing to PQ in a dedicated HT. Lastly, everything I might say here is absolutely worthless unless I had my own PJ and the RS25 side by side.
What was interesting about the doubling of black bars was that I could see the PJs absolute blacks versus the "real" absolute black on the sides. There was a considerable difference, and I noted that the PJs absolute blacks were significantly higher than my own even on a retroreflector.
Therefore, I know for a fact that this PJ, *if* calibrated, could look pretty darn amazing.
The pic had superb contrast, and gosh I'd like to know how much better it could look like when calibrated. Then I'd like to put something else on beside Transformers, which IMO is just not reference material.
The saturation of green was barely there, I think, but it was better than the OTB of my own RS1 for sure. The saturation of reds was much more similar, imo.
It also looked smoother, and freer from noise, however, the image is a fraction of my own display. I also do not know how much of this effect is specifically dependent on other things such as quality of optics, video processing, and convergence.
I don't know, but with the onboard CMS being the most important feature on this unit for a videophile, why on Earth they would not have it calibrated is beyond me. I just realized this entire spiel is useless, but I just wanted to share, and thanks for reading.
Final 2 cents: OTB, simply not worth the $$$ coming from my RS1. Final judgment is held until I see one that is calibrated (and why do I think that very well might not ever happen, lol).
I just keep repeating myself, but an uncalibrated RS25 for demo is just, like . . . an . . . oxymoron . . . er, lemme think of a more fitting word . . . maybe pointless? Oh, I don't know.
