Selecting the Best Flat Panel TV
From a value standpoint, nothing in over 30 years
of our consumer electronics experience has dropped so much in price in such a short time. It’s simply amazing the value in today’s flat panel TVs. Just eleven years ago, the first 50″ flat panel Wright’s Sound Gallery sold was $25,000 and at the same time, a 20″ LCD was $5500! Looking at the current crop of flat panel televisions at much more attractive pricing, the choices are overwhelming.
With that said, what is your best choice? First of all, you should consider how much time you will spend in front of the TV you choose. If it’s your main TV, you’ll probably spend much of your leisure time for the next several years viewing it.
Think about that when you calculate your budget, and compare it to how much you spend on other things
vs. the time you spend using or enjoying them. The world of flat panel televisions is divided into what many industry insiders call tiers.
Tier One
Tier One vendors have a significant investment in their United States operation, and are staffed to fully support the products they sell in the US. Tier One consists of familiar brands like Sony & Sharp, etc.
Tier Two
Tier Two is made up of Chinese manufacturers who have purchased brand names of defunct but recognizable US companies. They stamp these brand names on their generic flat panels sets for name recognition, but these companies operate with minimal warranty support and questionable availability of repair parts. Examples of Tier Two are Polaroid, Westinghouse, etc.
Tier Three
Tier Three are brands that are sold at a variety of outlets, but have no real support system set up in the United States. If these sets break after 90 days you typically are out of luck. Examples of Tier Three are Vizio, Insignia.
Comparing Flat Screen TV’s
Wright’s Sound Gallery chooses to sell only Tier One brands. This is critical unless you plan on throwing your flat panel in a landfill when it breaks, and buying another one. The best way to evaluate a flat panel TV picture is to watch something with lots of motion. Bad sets will have lots of artifacts in the picture that make it look like it’s tearing apart. Better sets will have far less of this. Most upper end sets from Tier One brands do a great job with motion and picture quality overall, but you still must make a side-by-side comparison.
For most of us, we will be viewing these for quite a few more years through either cable or satellite. In our opinion, we would rather watch non-HD on a tube TV than just about all of the Tier Two and Tier Three flat panel sets. On commodity priced flat panels, the non-HD picture looks terrible.
How About 3D?
The next big question is, “what about 3D?” For most mainstream vendors, the jump from their non-3D model to the 3D in the same size is typically a $100-$300 price differential- which translates into about 10% in most cases. The jury is still out on the potential future success of 3D TV, but all of the better performing sets from the major brands include 3D already. Our advice is if you are on a budget, forgo 3D, but if you are out to buy a great TV set, it’s going to come with 3D by default.
Plasma Screens
At Wright’s, we no longer sell Plasma sets. They had a great picture, but at too high of a cost. Shortened life span, high energy consumption, and image retention (burn in) has led to their retreat from the marketplace.
LCD Screens
LCD flat panel sets use CCFL (fluorescent bulbs)
to light up the screen. Since fluorescent lights don’t dim, LCD flat panels tend to struggle when reproducing dark scenes, because the fluorescent lights stay brightly lit inside them.
Contrast Ratio refers to the level of black detail a set delivers, but the number has become a marketing numbers game and consequently irrelevant, because no two manufacturers measure contrast ratio the same.
LED Screens
So what on earth is an LED TV? LED sets are simply LCD flat panels that use LEDs (light emitting diodes)
to backlight the screen instead of CCFL (fluorescent lights). Whereas an LCD set can not dim its fluorescent lights when displaying a dark scene, an LED TV switches off individual LEDs, making black detail perfect.
The deeper a set creates black, the brighter it creates white, therefore all colors improve with increased black level. LED TVs are extremely bright, do not have adverse glare in a brighter room, operate on a fraction of the electricity of an LCD TV, and generate near perfect color. LED TVs are the best available sets to purchase today.
What is Sharp Quattron?
Any color TV you have ever watched, makes color from red, green & blue. Remember the old front projectors with the red, green & blue guns? By “mixing” red, green & blue, a color TV can make roughly 16 billion colors. By adding yellow in addition to red, green & blue, Sharp’s new Quattron LED sets deliver over one TRILLION colors! These sets have the most perfect picture we have ever seen, and come in 40″, 46″, 52″, 60″, & 70″ sizes. Stop by for a look today, you’ll be amazed!
Why buy a TV from Us?
A big new TV is just the beginning of the things you will need for the full home theater experience. While it seems to be the first thing most people look for, when you have it you’ve really just gotten started. Today’s HDTVs not only connect to your cable or satellite provider, but also to the internet for unlimited streaming content. Imagine turning on your new HDTV and instantly streaming a movie from Netflix, or accessing pictures from a PC in your home. We can do all of this, and make it simple. We can also help with surround sound processing, a speaker package that works well in your environment, the right cables, the proper surge protection, and the all-important remote control-your interface to the complete experience. We offer complete installation services to help you get all of the new gear professionally installed.
A great picture with great sound will be a lot of fun for you and your family. Wright’s Sound Gallery offers HDTV sets from Tier One manufacturers like Sony & Sharp. Our staff lives and breathes this stuff, so feel free to come in and have fun getting an education. Take the time to do your research and consider that a few extra dollars spent will often buy you a lot more pleasure over the long run!
What Does the TV Sound Like?
In the days before flat panels, with conventional TVs there was enough depth in the cabinet to allow for speakers that were okay. Today’s flat panels just don’t have any room for speakers. It’s a pretty big problem when you have a great picture, but can’t understand the dialogue of the show or movie you’re watching. People frequently tell us that they bought a new TV from a big box store, but got it home and hated the sound.
Wright’s Sound Gallery has lots of choices to help you with TV audio and home theater sound. We are now stocking powered sound bars from Boston Acoustics, B&W, Sony & Sharp, which are horizontal speakers that mount directly underneath the flat panel TV, and dramatically enhance the overall volume and dialogue. If youa re looking for a simple yet dramatic improvement to TV sound, then the sound bar is the way to go.
