>>> The Official Sony Grand Wega V (A20 series) Thread <<<

Cfoote
I have seen the A20 here in Tampa, FL.....It looks great! I was really impressed with the PQ from this set. For some reason the blacks looked much "blacker" to me. I know this set doesn't have the new Iris that the A10 does, but still very nice looking. I am waiting for the A10s to show up here shortly. How about you?

The A20 has been in the L.A. area for about 3 weeks. I made a post about my first impressions.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to merge the A10's and A20's in one thread. These are two different animals. Different technology (the A10's have a different chassis). And as an example, most of us are considering the A10's only. An A20 post wouldn't be relevant to the A10 people and vice versa. I would suggest a seperate thread for the A10's and the A20's. Just a thought and really do appreciate all the help from this great forum.

I agree. Let'ss keep the A10 chassis separate.

cfoote, I appreciate the effort, but I'm going to have to agree with lipcrkr. I think the A10 and A20 are different enough that they should have their own threads.

Will we have to "resubscribe" to the new thread if the title is changed? I'm really only interested in the A10.

Thanks for starting the thread dude and thanks for separating the two creatures as I agree the A10 should have its own thread.
take care
Tec

Wow...nothing like watching a good butt kissing!

Can you feel the love?

Agree that the A10 and A20 each deserve their own thread, but "props" for the intitiative and gusto to start a well-intentioned comprehensive thread.

Jason

I just bought a 60" A20 after returning a Mitsubishi 62" DLP (had the annoying rainbow effect). The A20 set was the only 60" LCD set Tweeter had and I felt obligated to buy from them since they delivered, and exchanged the sets for no additional charge. Seeing the posts regarding the A10 I was curious about the differences (A10 vs A20) even though it appears the A10 only go to 55". I would appreciate a rundown of the differences :-) Lastly, I saw a KDF60xs955 in a retail store and it appeared that the XS set had a sharper, clearer, smoother picture - simply put a better picture. Not being able to compare my current A20 set next to the KDF60XS955 set I was wondering if the XS set is a superior set to the A20? I would certainly take the A20 back to Tweeter, and go buy the XS if the differences were that great in picture quality. Any facts/opinions are greatly appreciated.

I believe the 60wf655, 60xs955, and e60a20 should all have identical displays... conenctivity, menus, and speaker options are the only difference... That being said, when I looked at all 3 side by side, the XS did seem slightly better... I am guessing it was due to the set-up though and certainly not worth returning a TV for.

The A10's only go up to 50" (right now). I believe all three models have the same display properties aside from the A10's iris.

Does anyone own an A20 yet? I am very interested in getting one (bought a 60" Panasonic and it's a little too big for my viewing distance and I really did like the Sony's I saw better anyways...just couldn't afford the 60"). I'm going to head to Fry's after work and hopefully they'll have one there.

I just got the 55A20 over the weekend and am impressed so far. Don't have too many specific comments so far since I'm still getting it set up and this is my first RP tv, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions soon.

Do you have a video game system? If so which one and how does it look? What do you think of SD TV? Any impressions would be great!

I too am very interested in your review of the A20. Everyone is talking about how much better the A10's will be but I really want a 55" so I would prefer to get the A20.

I'm not much of a wordsmith when it comes to writing a produce review, so lets just say I'm very, very happy with my Sony E55A20 that I've owned for a little over two weeks.

My previous HDTV was 50 Samsung HLM 507W DLP TV and I never was completely happy with it on many levels, including crushed blacks and whites, banding, and bad colors. Never could get rid of the slightly green hue without over pushing the red drive. After owning the DLP for 2 ½ years it lost its digital mind (banding lines became bright orange and/or blue) and would need a board replaced for around $600 to $800, so I decided I would buy a new HDTV instead. Add the board replacement cost to the cost of 4 replacement lamps and the cost of ownership of the Samsung was just too high for the picture quality.

I did check out the newer Samsung DLP HDTV in local stores as I was searching for the best replacement for me. At each store the Sony LCD was a stand out compared to any and all newer DLPs on display. What finally pushed me over to Sony was the LCD TV connected to a cable box and tuned to INHD2. Compared to my DLP the picture was simple awesome and the cost was cheaper than a DLP.

I was not that happy with my new A20 the first couple of days it was in my room, until I found the advanced setup menu and was able to adjust the TV to my liking. It also helped that three days after getting the Sony A20 I picked up my new glasses that corrected my vision to 20/20.

Out of the box the TV had crushed blacks that was easy to correct by increasing the brightness setting 10%, setting the advanced black level correction to low and increasing the gamma setting. I have a computer connected to the HDMI input that I use to play HDTV Transport Stream test patterns for calibrating the TV. After adjusted with the test patterns I made minor adjustments to the internal over the air HDTV tuner and the cable tuner. The settings for the tuners were very close to the HDMI input settings. I used AVIA test and setup DVD for adjusting the component inputs. The TV remembers different settings on all inputs.

In a nutshell the A20 has excellent black and white details, outstanding color across the color gradient, absolutely no banding or contouring, excellent contrast with image depth, smooth film like motion, no mesquite noise and is a delight to watch. Did I mention that at 55 (with side speakers) this TV is BIG, but due to the base design still fits on the same stand used for the Samsung 50 DLP.

Well that is my story and I'm sticking to it.

P.S., Forgot to mention that a week after receiving the A20 Comcast installed a CableCard and a day later after correcting a code error in my account I have some great HD channels in addition to the OTA network programs.

P.P.S. Also forgot to mention the black level on the A20. The black level is slightly better than my Samsung DLP and is not really noticable unless viewed in a totally dark room. I've learned from the DLP TV to use front (indirect) lighting which greatly improves the black level from digital panel TV.

**I know this post is for the A20 series and I included some info on that unit in my post that I also made in a Mitsu thread. Thought the people reading this post might be interested in this**

I had a chance to check out this TV (52527) and the Sony 55 A20 tonight at Best Buy. It was perfect because those were the 2 TVs I've narrowed my choices down to and they were right next to each other.

Overall, out of all the TVs in the room, they did look like the best two (compared to all the DLPs & LCDs). The colors were deep & rich and the blacks looked pretty good too. They had on the trailer for that new Stealth' movie and the scenes were going pretty fast so it was hard to look back & forth and see the same scene to see how they compared. However, at the end it had the Coming to theaters' and the text/white coloring of the text looked much cleaner/crisper on the Mitsu.

About the only thing I noticed that made me hesitant to pick the Mitsu was there was some times when all the other TVs had something that was orange and on the Mitsu it looked red. It also happened with yellow and made it look orange. However, my guess it's because they were factory settings and hadn't been adjusted (at least that's what I'm hoping).

I'm exchanging a 60Panasonic DLP and based on my viewing tonight we're going to get the Mitsu. There are a few reasons2 HDMI (Sony only has 1), look of the TV and the look of the picture (looked slightly better than the Sony). I really wanted a 55-56 TV but I am content with the 52. If someone were comparing these two models it's really a tough decision, at least IMO.

I'm not very knowledgeable about a lot of TV stuff (still learning about DLPs/LCDs and all they have to offer) but any questions I can answer just let me know. I wasn't able to get this tonight (long story) but will be going tomorrow for it. They said they can deliver Friday so I can post some pics/reviews then.

That's funny because my wife almost thought the Mitsu was too bright as compared to the Sony. However, her comment was it's probably better that it's too bright 'cause we can lower if needed but we don't know how bright the Sony gets.

We just moved into a new house where the living room gets a lot of light from about 10am-4pm so I wanted something brighter (especially until we work on darkening the room a bit). With my current 60" Panasonic this morning when the picture got even a little dark I couldn't see anything.

Where's the pics of the A20s you slackers! Quit enjoying your damn TV and get back to work!

Jason

Are you able to get 1:1 pixel mapping with the A20 and a PC, if so at what resolution ?

I'm interested in this answer as well. I'll be taking a crack at it this weekend (I hope) and will post my results. I didn't have too much free time during my initial setup, so when I found a standard resolution that worked pretty well for me, I stopped.

Can anyone with an A20 please post their settings? I have mine at home waiting for me when I get home from work and would appreciate some help on what settings work well.

What does everyone with this set think of the SDTV? It looks terrible on mine. Some channels look better than others but overall I'm not really happy with it.

Did you find the DRC menu that allows you to adjust the settings for SDTV?

Excellent post as your observations are all too true.
I too owned the 507 but for less than half the time you did. What a lemon.
Man you've been through hell. A Sammy dealer told me today that getting service or parts from Samsung is still difficult.
Congratulations on the new Sony...