Originally Posted by
Ninerfan4ever 
Yesterday, I had my 111fd calibrated by Jeff Meier (UMR) of Accucal. This completed the cycle of researching on the net prior to purchase, buying when the price was right, using the recommended break-in procedure, installing Control Cal, setting up IDF day and night modes with D-Nice's settings and enjoying the view for four months until Jeff came by on his tour. Many thanks to all of the regular contributors to this forum for their combined advice, wisdom and spirited debate. I surely would not have come close to now having the best-of-the-best result without this extremely valuable input.
One question that I see asked frequently is If I do a proper break-in and set up the ISF modes with the settings generously provided on this site, is it worth it to also get a professional calibration? For me, the answer is a definite yes, but I also believe that much of the improvement that was made during the calibration was due to the presence of a top-notch calibrator using top-notch equipment.
Prior to the calibration, overall the set performed well enough to satisfy all but the most particular people, however, over the last few weeks, even with an untrained eye, I noticed that the ISF-Day was not as bright as I'd like, ISF-night was too dim, that detail in dark grays or blacks was not visible and that colors bordering on pink and purple looked off. The pre-calibration measurements confirmed that the colors were close as all errors were within +/- 5%.
After calibration, all colors were within +/- 1%, ISF-day has improved from 36 to 44 fl in brightness and the black crush has been eliminated. The colors are great and in fact I have seen a particular improvement in the blues. The total effect is that sometimes, with the right input, you see scenes that take your breath away. Definitely more pop to the picture.
This was my first calibration and it was a great experience. Jeff showed up on time and patiently explained the process as he first calibrated the set with instruments, then watched particular scenes on a number of DVD's and Blue-rays to check the results in specific hard-to-get-right sequences. Throughout the process, we had a great conversation and I learned a tremendous amount.
I also had Jeff calibrate my sound system. I knew going in that my odd-shaped room and mixture of speakers needed vast improvement. What he found was that the speaker configuration was sufficient for my tastes after several corrections were made. One speaker was wired backward relative to the others. Another speaker had a bad tweeter that needed to be repaired or replaced. The cross-over frequency on the subwoofer was set wrong so it was not kicking in correctly. There were about 20 different settings on my Onkyo receiver that were wrong or needed improvement. Finally, the overall levels of the speakers were not balanced correctly for the room. In other words, audio disaster. Even with one speaker now missing to get repaired the sound has immensely improved. Again, after the instrument corrections, he listened to several reference audio tracks to confirm the results.
In conclusion, the video improvement finally brought the elite up to my original expectations at purchase and I am very lucky to have purchased the Kuro when I did. The audio is 500% better than before. If you truly want to squeeze the very most out of your investment in home theater, this is the way to go and it's worth every penny.
