Official Sharp Elite PRO-70X5 and 60X5 Owners Thread - Page 406

Quick question for you guys. My cousin is looking at a new 60" that is "new" but does not come in original box. Seller is NOT authorized ELITE seller. So my question is....Is it worth it? He is getting it about 20% less than online deals. Im wondering if warranty still applies? That was my concern for him. Thoughts??? Thanks.

I'm not photo pro, however - try to fix to 1/15 - 1/30 and let ISO be auto to compensate

I see almost the same at your 1st pic as on main.
This is the problem - when you saw it once - you'll spot it right away and that DSE / pattern sticks when you watch movies with plain background, snow sports the worst.

Yea bro.. I just watched Inception a few nights ago. And the scene where they was in the snow I could see it. I could see it also in skin tones when the subject moves across the screen. After that I knew it had to be brought up to my local BB/Magnolia where I got the set from. Magnolia is top notch for customer service. No questions ask. They even the ones told me that they need to replace my set right away.

Well I've cancelled my order on the Elite 70" and switched it over to a Samsung 75ES9000. The salesperson at the shop I was purchasing from charged me only a small increase after much haggling and conferencing with the bosses (him with the store owner, me with the missus) I spent a good bit of time in between him conferencing with his boss and me conferencing with the wife, going back and forth between the Elite and ES9000 trying to find something, anything that would sway me one way or the other on either set. He had told me that had received no complaints from any of his customers about the quality or PQ on the Elites, but did agree that I was more knowledgeable than most of his customers and probably in the upper 10% as far as my expectations of overall quality are concerned. After going back and forth for at least 20-25 minutes, I can say that I do think that the Elite PQ is marginally better than the ES9000, but I was kind of surprised at close they were. My wife really liked all the hoo-a-ma-ha on the Samsung I will likely never use (hope I'm not offending anyone, but really, who wants to talk to their tv ?) as well as liking the extra few inches, and all I was after was the best image, but after all the recent issues with the Nov. 2012 builds, and being told they are being discontinued I have opted not to ride that roller coaster. I had previously purchased, had calibrated, and ultimately returned a Sharp 80LE844 (the 80" Quattron 3D model), so I am not eager to go through the whole unboxing, setting up, calibrating, and then reboxing and returning such a large set again.

I really appreciate the posts and patience of those who have helped provide the information on this forum (Dvzzz, you must have the patience of a monk or a saint or something like that). I do really like the PQ, and were it not for my previous return, and my wife liking all the bells and whistles on the ES9000, I might have been willing to travel a little ways down that road, but my confidence is not there that it would end up in a happy place (I am Canadian, hockey is back, I watched 9 hours of it on Saturday, dealing with artifacts or issues would not be cool). Thanks all.

I would be wary, but it's not my money.
If you can, get the serial# and give Sharp a call.

I've seen open-box 60's (with full warranty) at my local Best Buy for $2900.
Your cousin might check that route.

Well, I just currently have a Nov. 2012 build 60 that looks fine to me with Cnet's settings. Just paid 1k difference and ordered the 70. They will take the 60 back with them. I really like the picture of thief 60. Hope I get a pretty decent tv. This is coming out of Illinois. My local Best Buy is not a Magnolia store so they have to order it in. They told me it was coming out of Illinois. They told me if they had to order out of another area it would take a long time. Will let you know, gets delivered Thursday . It is cold here so will have to give it several hours to warm up before turning it on.

Now do I spend $700 on Best Buy's warranty or go with Electronicwarranty.com for $232. Seems easier to go with BB but a lot more expensive.

Thanks, Jon

Also how is Geek squad's calibration? It is a free service I get wit silver reward zone.
Edited by Surge - 1/21/13 at 3:58pm

Wow nice buy buddy..........wish i could afford one , because they are very nice indeed.

Go with BB.

Any reasons why? $470 more. Seems to be good reviews on the online one. My wife wants the cheaper and I almost went with BB today but have 60 days from today to get it. Wanted to do some research. Thanks for any additional info. Jon

Granted were talking a 2800 dollar set vs 5-7 Thousand dollar sets, but it appears the Elite series is not the only affected with sharps quality control.. I got my second LE847U today and have pretty bad DSE as well as some sort of backlight/screen uniformity issue that is affecting the picture. I will go through as many sets as it takes to get a proper set.

To be honest by the time I'm done with sharp, they probably would save some money just sending me an Elite, I think I'd be okay with a few of the issues I've seen if it was a free upgrade Wishfull thinking.

In case any of you are curious, here is the post http://www.avsforum.com/t/1397140/official-sharp-aquos-lc-60le847u-lc-70le847u-owners-thread/1980#post_22860470

Figured I would just post to show that its not just you guys getting the shaft, appears all of sharps QC efforts are crap lately.

From my experince, BB for sure. They were outstanding when my previous 2008 TV (Samsung) recently died and I was able to replace it with the Elite as a comparable technology. I bought another protection plan for the Elite in case Sharp folds in the next 5 years. Can't say enough good things about the service

This is ny metro area...BB wont budge below $4k plus tax for display. He is getting it for about what u posted when you figure in tax.

Missed that your price was under $3000 which qualifies it for Square Trade. Hear great things about it and was going to give it a whirl but my purchase price was too much to get covered.

Wow! I'm beginning to think The plant in Mexico is mixed up with the cartel.

I would say either way your taking a chance. I have read about some issues here on avs with the 75ES9000. Not to mention it's not in the same class as the ELITE as far as blacks go. I think if you read about some of the issues that plague samsungs edge lit sets you would have chose differently. Just my opinion, although I didn't have the wife in my ear helping me make the decision which I am sure made the difference. When both of these sets are calibrated to there best the ELITES pq blows the samsungs away so I would have to disagree with the statement "I do think that the Elite PQ is marginally better" because in all honesty there not even close. On another note I do hope you are happy with your set cause in the end that's all that matters. I really feel bad for those that can not enjoy this set the way I have for over a year now. Damn Slimer! WHO YA GONNA CALL?!!

I would buy one at that price too! Lol...he is getting a receipt, he called elite, they said it doesn't have to come from an authorized seller, he just needs a receipt, and they want sn to verify its not a refurb.

on side note - when I showed in BB to my wife Elite 70" and Samsung 75 - answer was simple - "Samsung looks better, Elite is ugly box".

Haha to bad she didn't pay more attention to what was inside that ugly box. Plus I have never been a fan of silver bezels no matter how slim. But my wife sure does like em too!

honestly, I spent at least 20-25 minutes going back and forth between the Elite and the ES9000, and I won't say that if you measured that the Elite wasn't a hair darker, but nothing that going back and forth between the two sets that stands out. The processing also seemed MARGINALLY better, but the Elite was on dedicated Bluray player and the ES9000 was on a feed off a splitter. I'm not a fanboy, or have any preference for either brand, my last set was Panasonic 55GT30, but I can say with 100% confidence that anybody who claims one is superior to the other is not being completely objective. I ordered and paid in full for the Elite on friday, and today when I went back today to check out the ES9000 as an alternative should there be an issue with the Elite I was trying very very hard to find something, anything that would tip the balance one way or the other. I put on pure black screen looking for flashlighting, colour boxes looking for blooming, I put on Panny demo disk with some sort of spirograph pattern looking for line -bleed, I put up test patterns....I had the remote for both sets and checked the different modes between the sets (THX on the Elite vs Movie on the Sammy, Pure on the Elite vs Natural on the Sammy) like I said, anyone who proclaims one being superior to the other really isn't being fair to either. With calibration I'm sure the differences would be even less.

I have been on the ES9000 owner thread for last hour and there is only 6 pages, seeing a few complaints regarding clouding, but its certainly no more complaints than any other tv. There is always a few outliers in the QC department as far as defective sets go. Reading reviews on amazon, the biggest complaint seems to be about cost. People have said the picture isn't worth the 10K asking price. I don't see anything out of the ordinary as far as there being disproportionate numbers of any one defect that would lead me to think there were any design or manufacturing concerns. When comparing the worst case as far as defective sets by one customer, Mata7 on the ES9000 thread went through less sets than Dvzzz ( 4 vs 6) and the 4 th was perfect. So I wouldn't say that there were any more issues reported than the Elite has had.
Edited by pred1973 - 1/21/13 at 7:07pm

Isn't the standard warranty that comes with the Elite 2 years? When I asked Best Buy about their warranty, they said it isn't added to the standard warranty, it runs concurrently. That makes it kind of a waste of money, no?

Yeah someone posted on this thread that they switched out there 75ES9000 for the ELITE actually and went on to call it garbage (not my words as I have only seen the samsung in my local BB and did not think it was "garbage" but I could easily see the difference in blacks). I am not sure what page it was but would guess it was between 6 and 8 weeks ago. Don't take my word for it though just watch the last HDTV shootout where the contrast of the samsung edge lit LED was somewhere in the 3 or 4,000:1 ratio while the ELITE blew away all the competition at 15,000:1. Those numbers aren't exact but very close to what was actually measured by Kevin Miller and all other calibrators present at the shootout. Now I am sure you might say something like the 75es9000 is a whole new different model but the facts are that no edge lit set ever made comes close to these measurements of the ELITE and it's contrast it's just part of the tech (the difference of which is easily viewable especially in a dark room) . That is why true local dimming sets are so sought after by videophiles and the ELITE even more so due to the fact it has virtually zero blooming. Like I said though don't take my word for it just ask some of the long time members here and watch the HDTV shootouts held by Value Electronics and I am sure you will get a more clear view on the whole topic. If you care enough that is.

Fact is most people do not care about these differences and often go to places like BB to compare tvs which is probably the worst thing to do if your interested in pq at all. This is in my experience. They have great customer service but are not trained to know the facts on every set and it's tech. Also there ambient light and torch modes kill most sets right off the bat. I am not saying in any way this was the case with you just my experience. And last but not least all that I said about blacks and contrast was based on measurements taken by professionals at the shootout I am not trying to say your set is terrible or bad at all just that according to what I have seen and read samsungs edge lit sets are not in the same class. But unless anyone on this thread has any info I don't or heard something new I haven't, the ELITE still has no competition in the LED/LCD department.

Sorry I got the last couple posts mixed up

Thanks for your calibration report. I've included a link to it in the flat panel (post #2) lists that are linked in the signature area at the bottom of my post.

DYAUSWINTERS

I was not checking these in a BB, I live in a city of about a million people and there is only one shop that even carries the Elite. It is an extremely high end shop. They won't even carry the ST model of the panasonics, the lowest model set in the shop is a 60GT50. I have also followed the VE shootout for at least a few years, and sorry but the VT50 beat the Elite in the last shootout, and it barely beat out the VT30 the year before that. The Elite has not had any improvement since then, and now there are the VT60 and ZT60 that are better than the previous model years. The ES9000 was NOT included in that shootout either so we will have to see if the Elite even makes the shootout this year and see where that comparison lands. The Elite I was comparing to the ES9000 was in a preferential location in the shop in sort of an alcove with no direct lighting anywhere near it, so the fact that on the test patterns showing the shades of black were indistinguishable from one set to the other speaks volumes, especially as I've said, I had the remotes and had set both sets to comparable modes (THX on the Elite, Movie on the ES, Pure on the Elite, Natural on the ES) with comparable settings, meaning that one did not have lighting, brightness or contrast set proportionately different than the other, ie. one was not turned down and one turned up.

I am not trying to be insulting but you are basing your opinion off exactly what you said invalidates an opinion, which is that you seen the ES9000 in BB, where who knows what mode or what the settings were that you are comparing the Elite to. I spent time TODAY, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...I had already bought the Elite, I would not have switched my order to the ES9000 if there was any indication that the Elite was superior. The black levels were virtually indistinguishable between them. From a technological standpoint, I do understand that a full-array, local dimmed set has an advantage, but whatever voodoo they used on the ES9000 makes that technological advantage nearly imperceptible.

Here is a review that also makes a statement about just how good the blacks are....
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-es9000-hdtv-led-series-9,18218.html

and in particular this quote from that review

"What struck us most strongly about the ES9000 is not its size, but rather its ability to reproduce deep blacks. Most home theater aficionados lean towards plasma displays for black levels, but Samsung was especially eager to show off the ES9000's performance in a completely pitch black room.

A demo reel showed off impressive blacks against vibrant colours, but it wasn't until we moved onto The Dark Knight that we were wowed. It's hard to judge from the photos we snapped at the demo, but they were the best blacks we've seen from an LED LCD HDTV."



This is not any bash on the Elite, and it was the one I initially bought, but when you compare the two objectively, color, motion, black level are so evenly matched that unless there is something that makes one better for calibration I think that they would be even closer post calibration (given that that the closer you move to an ideal the less variance there is). Thats when the details come into play, the ES has better web functionality, built in camera, 5 more inches, none of those things factored into my opinion but certainly did my wife's. Even though the bezel on both sets are completely different, they both have the same goal... to disappear during viewing, one by being matte black, the other by being super thin, so I think that if you watch your set in a darkened room as I do its non-factor either way. If it was going in a room with lots of ambient light, well, I might have had to tell my wife she was wrong on what one she thought was better in that department LOL.

Both are excellent, excellent sets, and 99.9% of people would be lucky to have either one, I am sorry but I just cannot agree that one is clearly superior to the other in terms of overall PQ.
Edited by pred1973 - 1/21/13 at 10:13pm

Ok I am new hear and need have been reading all the post so I have a question. I have a chance to buy a Elite pro-70xfd that is used and I can't figure out if it a good panel or a bad one. It is 6 months old and about 1700 hours on it I don't see any thing wrong with it when I look at it. I think it is a good price at 4600.00 but don't know if that it a lot of hours or worth it from what I have been reading. So I need some advise from people who own one now. I have been wanting to pull the trigger but am not sure with all I have been reading. The only other one I am looking at is the vt Panasonic but the elite seems to keep pulling me back in. I have a pro950hd and think it is as good as that in many ways. I have two units to chose from and know the model numbers on both so which ones have been having the problems is what I want to know. Also is 1700 hours a lot of time and is that a good price. I know it is a few questions but also some advise would be good from you guys. Thanks.

1700 hours in 6 months means that set was on about 10 hours a day..EVERYDAY. 1700 divided by 6 (months) = 283 hours a month, divided by 4 (weeks in a month) = 70.83 hours a week divided by 7 (days in a week) = 10.1 a day. I don't think that itself should be a concern, but personally I would be wondering why so many hours per day every day. Was this a display/floor model ? From my understanding and I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will answer, but I think there is lots of life left in that set. My understanding is that the LED's don't lose any brightness for about 40,000 hours, and even after that it just means re-calibrating for that shift, because as they dim it changes the intensity of the colors, and that they can last up to 100,000 hours. Honestly I would be more concerned about warranty issues just in case there was a problems in the future, $4600 is a substantial chunk of cash for most people, and if there is no warranty then you are either paying for repair out of pocket or are out the total amount if it is unrepairable.

You should really come to the store near me, but seriously, actually I was told that last 4 units were asked to be brought back to Sharp, supposedly, they want at least look at them. Since Sharp has an office in Illinois this is a just a short drive for the delivery folks.

Magnolia is high-integrity here. If it was reported defective and they all saw evidence, then they will not them put back on the floor even as open box.

Regardless, I am shopping for a different set now but out of curiosity played a grey field on another Elite at the dealer today from 70" was from January 2012 build and grey was absolutely perfect, so all this BS about a little bit of green is on every set is just that - BS. Those that are shopping for an Elite should know Nov2012 DSE is NOT normal and that is why all pre-Nov buyers are so happy with their sets. All pre-Nov2012 sets had almost perfect grey, for sure no green or pink. 2nd pre-Nov set that I saw personally. Just beautiful screen, no DSE, 1 dead pixel but immaculate uniformity on every step of the scale up to Beyond White. Those considering me nut case can check and re-check but all serial on those perfect sets started with 108 vs. 211 on the Nov.

I have never seen more uniform screens than pre-Nov screens.

Edited by dvzzz - 1/21/13 at 10:09pm

Question:

Does anyone think I would benefit in a professional calibration even though I do not watch in THX mode? Elite Pure is my prefered viewing medium. Or does viewing source material outside of THX mode defeat the purpose of a full calibration?

Thanks ahead of time!

P.S. I've decided to keep the Elite.